TheGamingEconomy’s Daily Digest brings you the prevalent business stories in gaming. In today’s news: Samsung Ventures ups DigiLens investment; Nintendo to boost Switch production; and Unruly partners with Ampverse for esports video investment programme. Samsung Ventures ups DigiLens investment Samsung Venture Investment Corporation has announced that it has increased its investment in extended reality (XR) hardware manufacturer DigiLens through the issuance of convertible bonds. DigiLens specialises in the production of its waveguide display components, which purportedly can be produced at a significantly [...]

TheGamingEconomy’s Daily Digest brings you the prevalent business stories in gaming. In today’s news: Embracer Group raises SEK1.65bn (£133m); N3TWORK opens USD$50m (£40m) developer growth fund; and Quest Ventures raises USD$50m (£40m) VC fund. Embracer Group raises SEK1.65bn (£133m) Embracer Group AB has announced that it has raised SEK1.65bn (£133m) through the direct issuance of 18.5 million Class B shares, approximately 5% of total outstanding share capital. According to the Karlstad-based holding group, over 100 firms subscribed to the issue, including Skandia, [...]

In this special contributed feature by Wilhelm Voutilainen, senior game analyst at GameRefinery looks at what we can learn about mobile gaming by looking back to the previous year, pulling insights from the company’s considerable pool of data. — So here we are in 2020 – not just a new year, but the start of a whole new decade. We’ve returned to our desks full of heady optimism, and focused on the future. Looking back at the past year can often be [...]

TheGamingEconomy’s Daily Digest brings you the prevalent business stories in gaming. In today’s news: Microsoft focusing on subscribers over consoles; UK VGTR spend hits £582.6m; and ironSource opens mobile game studio. Microsoft focusing on subscribers over consoles Microsoft is focusing less on its hardware devices and is instead more closely examining how to appeal to a wider gaming audience, most preeminently through its Game Pass subscription service, according to comments made by its executive vice president of gaming Phil Spencer on Gamertag [...]

It’s easy to feel instinctively optimistic about in-game advertising. In recent years there’s been a powerful sense that in-game ads aren’t simply an increasingly valuable means of income for developers and publishers; perhaps they’re now understood and embraced by more consumers and industry figures than ever before. Furthermore, there is an ever more diverse spread of games, markets and consumers where ads are fitting. And now it feels like there are a greater number of platforms, approaches and tools through which [...]

TheGamingEconomy Daily Digest brings you the trending business stories in gaming. In today’s edition: Facebook acquires cloud gaming outfit PlayGiga; Bidstack secures £10m Agency Trade Deal; and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare clears USD$1bn (£776.4m) in sales Facebook acquires cloud gaming outfit PlayGiga Social networking giant Facebook has acquired Madrid-based cloud gaming company PlayGiga. As reported by CNBC, the move furthers Facebook’s increasing presence in the gaming space, following the news that it picked up VR studio Beat Games last month. Equally, with [...]

In our latest guest post Vanessa Goff-Yu, marketing director at in-game advertising platform Bidstack, takes an optimistic look at the sizeable female gamer demographics, the rise of the strong female game character, and the role brands can play in aiding female representation across games. The news that Natalie Portman will take on the lead role in the fourth Thor film in 2021 wasn’t just the start of Marvel’s next phase; it was part of a wider radical shift in female representation [...]

TheGamingEconomy Daily Digest brings you the trending business stories in gaming. In today’s edition: Qualcomm and Niantic collaborating on new AR glasses; Wildlife Studios raises USD$60m (£45.7m) for mobile portfolio; Gameloft closes UK studio. Qualcomm and Niantic collaborating on new AR glasses The studio behind the phenomenally popular augmented reality mobile game Pokémon GO is working with semiconductor and telecommunications equipment giant Qualcomm to develop a new AR headset. While Pokémon GO was pivotal in introducing mobile to the masses, as highlighted by [...]

In this guest post by the CEO of the mobile game insights and market data specialist GameRefinery, Markus Ramark considers a new way to build your targeting, and looks at why understanding player ‘affinity’ with given games might unlock new levels of success.   At its heart, the mobile games industry is a multi-billion dollar battle to find the highest spending, frequently playing, most loyal new players. Top-performing games are supported with marketing spend in the tens of millions, and app stores [...]

Late last year mobile marketing platform AppLovin acquired in-app bidding start-up MAX. The AppLovin team has since built out the MAX platform, and integrated the real-time mobile header bidding solution into its wider ecosystem. Now MAX has had a little time out in the wild in the hands of mobile developer and publisher customers, we caught up with Carl Livie, MD EMEA of AppLovin, to talk in-app bidding. Could it be that the long-promised in-app bidding revolution is finally underway? And [...]