North America

• Tencent Adds Live-Streaming Function to WeChat; Scopely Expands into APAC

  4 weeks ago News

  

  TheGamingEconomy Daily Digest brings you the trending business stories in gaming. In today’s edition: Tencent integrates live-streaming e-commerce functions in WeChat, Scopely expands into APAC, and PlayStation 4 sells thirty million units in the US. Tencent integrates live-streaming e-commerce functions in WeChat Chinese internet giant Tencent has integrated live streaming functions into its WeChat platform, which has been designed to facilitate e-commerce capabilities, according Weixin (translation provided by KrASIA). The functions on the platform, which has 1.1 billion monthly active users will [...]

• Hyper-Casual Esports Platform Ready Raises USD$5m (£4.1m)

  2 months ago News

  

  BITKRAFT Esports Ventures has spearheaded a USD$5m (£4.1m) Series A funding round in competitive hyper-casual platform Ready. By any technical definition, Ready is an esports offering. At its most fundamental, it lets players do battle in multiplayer games for cash prizes. It’s key differentiation from conventional esports models comes from its hyper-casual leaning. Esports are typically the preserve of the most hardcore, devoted player demographics there are. Professional esports players have strict training regimes, coaches and even sports psychologists to optimise their [...]

---

• Snap Games details real-time multiplayer focus for hyper causal Snapchat games

  3 months ago News

  

  As one of the dominant social platforms for teenage and young adult users, Snapchat is an obvious home for hyper casual instant games. That’s something the platform’s team are keenly aware of, it would seem, as a number of games have recently become available for Snapchat, each playable directly within the messaging service. Yesterday, for example, the internal Snapchat games division Snap Games released its seventh titlefor the platform, Bitmoji Tennis. The launch coincided neatly with Wimbledon, and continues the platform’s Bitmoji [...]

• Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony write letter to Trump against game console tariffs; Industry is only "paying lip service" to gaming addiction

  4 months ago News

  

  TheGamingEconomy’s Daily Digest brings you the trending stories in gaming. In today’s news: Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony write letter to Trump against game console tariff; Industry is only “paying lip service” to gaming addiction – UK technology inquiry chair; and Treyarch under fire for crunch culture. Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony write letter to Trump against game console tariff Plans from US president Donald Trump to impose a 25% tariff on goods, including video game consoles, has drawn criticism from Microsoft, Nintendo and [...]

• E3: Microsoft reveals Xbox One successor, coming 2020

  4 months ago News

  

  With this year’s huge E3 gaming conference hardly underway, Microsoft has revealed that its follow up to the Xbox One console, announcing that the machine is due to launch in 2020. Code-named Project Scarlett, the coming console promises to be ‘four times’ as powerful as Microsoft’s current-generation Xbox One. Console ‘power’, of course, is too complicated to exist on a linear spectrum where all games machines are comparable using a single metric. But thanks in-part to a custom processor, built by Microsoft [...]

• Disruptor Beam Lifts Lid on Mobile Live-Ops & Game Dev Platform

  6 months ago News

  

  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 [...]

• Epic Removes Problematic Player-Created Content from Fortnite

  6 months ago News

  

  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 [...]

• GDC Day Four Roundup: Microsoft's Stadia Response, Steam Store Redesign & Overwatch's Well-Behaved Players

  7 months ago News

  

  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 [...]

• GDC Day Three Roundup: Epic's USD$100m 'MegaGrants', Oculus' New VR Headset & Keyword's €100m Acquisitions Pot

  7 months ago News

  

  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 [...]

• GDC Day One Roundup: Unity Partners with Tencent, Call of Duty Goes Mobile & How to Catch that Google Keynote

  7 months ago News

  

  With the first day of the huge Game Developers Conference 2019 behind us, it’s a chance to reflect on key news from the show. Here we’ll bring you quick spotlights on key stories; something TheGamingEconomy will do every day of the show. The sheer volume of stories can make it hard to keep up, and separating the wheat from the chaff is a time-consuming business. That’s why we’re here with quick reads that bring you the stories that matter. So [...]