Crowdfunding platform Kickstarter has seen backers give USD$1bn (£769m) to game projects in the ten years since its launch. When Kickstarter launched in 2009, crowdfunding was little known to the public, but following some high-profile projects by prominent creators, it quickly became a very ordinary way to bankroll a game. As detailed in a new official Kickstarter blog post (via pocketgamer.biz), almost 17,000 game projects have been funded through its crowd-based model. Some tremendously successful games have been defined by their success [...]

U.S. soft drinks giant PepsiCo was, until recently, planning to launch a gaming-focused advertising campaign hosted on billboards suspended in space. If you’re not familiar with ‘stratosphere advertisements’ – also known as ‘orbital display ads’ – brace yourself. Russian tech outfit StartRocket plans to releases networks of tiny ‘cubesat’ satellites into space, which can be arranged into formations that project light back to Earth; perhaps assuming the form of a company logo or slogan. As such, the satellite arrays essentially offer orbiting [...]

The Boston-based development studio Disruptor Beam has made a move into game tech, revealing that it is releasing a new platform for mobile game development and live ops. Known for its work on Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, and in particular Star Trek mobile games, Disruptor Beam is now making its Disruptor Engine available to third parties. The new platform is essentially a commercialised version of its internal game technology, which has been used to build and maintain titles like [...]

Gaming giant Epic has removed a player-created scene from the Fortnite gameplay map after the game’s fans reported that it depicted seriously problematic content. TheGamingEconomy will offer a brief warning here; this article will necessarily make very occasional and passing references to suicide. Back in 2018, Epic revealed that an area of the Fortnite map would be given over to a region called The Block. The idea is that Epic uses The Block to showcase some of the best player-made Fortnite environments, rotating [...]

The United Kingdom’s games sector appears to be in rude health. As part of this week’s ongoing London Games Festival, it was revealed that the UK games market enjoyed 10% year-on-year growth through 2018. UK games industry trade body Ukie also revealed that the growth saw the UK consumer games market reach a record £5.7bn value in 2018. Ukie’s figures also show that game software revenues in the UK cleared £4bn for the first time in 2018, climbing 10.3% year-on-year to £4.01bn. [...]

Angry Birds outfit Rovio has announced that it has placed USD$3m (£2.3m) into the new Play Ventures fund, which hopes to initially invest in 20-25 video game companies. Play Ventures was founded last year by video game entrepreneurs Harri Manninen and Henric Suuronen, and plans to grow to offer a USD$30m (£23m) total funding pot. Play Ventures is focused on making early-stage investment in video game companies based across the world. “Our investment in Play Ventures is according to our M&A and [...]

At this week’s closely watched Apple event, the tech giant lifted the lid on a new video game subscription service by the name of ‘Apple Arcade’. The service will launch with over 100 new and exclusive titles, serving mobile, desktop, and Apple’s new TV platform, and will include works by game design luminaries such as SimCity creator Will Wright and Final Fantasy’s Hironobu Sakaguchi. With a promised emphasis on originality, broad appeal, and creativity of game design, Apple Arcade appears to be [...]

As the Game Developers Conference 2019 nears its end, the news continues to flow. The most interesting story related to the show in this roundup doesn’t come from the GDC floor itself, though. Instead, it’s from within a reported internal Microsoft email. Specifically, in an email handed to tech site Thurrott (thanks GamesIndustry.biz), Microsoft’s head of Xbox, Phil Spencer, apparently contacted colleagues to assure them that the reveal of Google’s game-streaming platform Stadia validated Microsoft’s efforts in the same space. The Google [...]

As GDC continues to thunder forward, Fortnite and Unreal outfit Engine Epic has revealed a USD$100m (£76.6m) fund for developers that use its tech. The MegaGrants initiative has been launched alongside a new suite of online multiplayer dev tools; but the funding pot isn’t reserved purely for games makers. As reported by GamesIndustry.biz, studios can apply for grants that range from USD$5,000-to-USD$500,000 (£3,800-to-£383,000) – and here ‘studios’ refers to game makers, TV and film production firms, enterprise developers, education specialists, and even [...]

Google has made its move on gaming with the announcement of streaming platform Stadia.  The news came on the second day of the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco; and it surely stands as one of the most significant gaming reveals in the industry’s history. Such a major player moving in with such an ambitious platform could radically impact the broad ecosystem of the industry, the makeup of audiences playing games, and the way the medium is consumed and designed. However, Stadia’s [...]