As part of the recent UK budget, the government confirmed that it is pressing ahead with its somewhat controversial Digital Services Tax. As reported by the Financial times, the UK plans to raise £500m a year by applying the tax primarily to large US tech companies. It is being seen as a means to secure money in relation to allegations that many large tech outfits are not paying enough tax in the areas in which they operate, instead using low tax [...]

English Heritage yesterday found itself at the centre of something of a social media storm when it was noted that a recent marketing campaign by the history charity took a swipe at gaming. As highlighted in a tweet by Paul Kilduff-Taylor of indie developer Mode7, an English Heritage leaflet targeting parents asked on its cover: ‘isn’t it time to make their virtual world history?’. The message of the leaflet seemed to be explicitly leaning into the notion that youngsters should be [...]

TheGamingEconomy’s Daily Digest brings you the prevalent business stories in gaming. In today’s news: Digital drives 68.7% of EA’s Q3 net revenue; Zuckerberg still committed to AR and VR as ‘the holy grail of social experiences’; and Global Game Jam 2020 begins. Digital drives 68.7% of EA’s Q3 net revenue EA’s digital net revenue totalled USD$1.12bn (£854.7m) in the last full financial quarter, demonstrating the significance of the company’s considerable portfolio of live games to its commercial health. That figure accounts for 68.7% [...]

TheGamingEconomy’s Daily Digest brings you the trending stories in gaming. In today’s news: 55% of UK dev jobs are outside of London and the South East; Atari to open gaming hotels; and USD$10m-plus (£7.68m-plus) contracts for top streamers departing Twitch 55% of UK dev jobs are outside of London and the South East UK games industry trade body Ukie and cultural charity the BFI have released a new report that reveals that 55% of game developers were based outside London and the [...]

PlayStation is skipping on attending E3 this year, just a few months before it plans to launch the PS5. A decade or so ago, that would have seemed like a very peculiar move. E3 has long been the place to announce and launch the biggest games and gaming platforms. It is famed as a media frenzy, where the world’s press amass to collect and share all the key gaming news. Indeed, it was the very first E3 in 1995 that saw one [...]

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 [...]

TheGamingEconomy Daily Digest brings you the trending business stories in gaming. In today’s edition: Adobe acquires Facebook’s VR sculpting tool Medium; Epic Game Store enables third-parties to offer in-game purchases; Bethesda puts The Elder Scrolls Legends development on hold. Adobe acquires Facebook’s VR sculpting tool Medium Creative software provider Adobe has acquired the VR sculpting tool Medium from Facebook for an undisclosed sum. Launched by the social media giant in December 2016, the art tool previously let users of VR systems paint, sculpt [...]

Twitter isn’t a gaming platform. The social network may have seen a major uptake in gaming engagement in recent months, but while the likes of Facebook, WeChat and Kakao Talk have become homes for hyper casual, the micro-blogging platform has not. Still, there are lessons to be learned for game ad-tech providers – as well as game makers and publishers of ad-monetised games – after Twitter had a somewhat bad week. As reported by the BBC, on Thursday shares in Twitter fell by [...]

TheGamingEconomy Daily Digest brings you the trending business stories in gaming. In today’s edition: The FCC can repeal net neutrality; Rune raises USD$2m (£1.62m); and AlphaDream files for bankruptcy. The FCC can repeal net neutrality – Court of Appeals The US District of Columbia Court of Appeals has upheld the right of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to repeal net neutrality, ruling against Mozilla which brought the court case forward. However the court also ruled that individual states could maintain net neutrality [...]

Instant gaming outfit Knock Knock has secured USD$4m (£3.3m) in a Series A funding round led by March Capital Partners. It’s another encouraging story of success in the casual games sector, but there’s something more fascinating beyond the investment itself. Knock Knock is focused on instant games for messenger platforms, having so far launched two titles for the Facebook Instant Games platform. It’s relatively early days for the 2018-founded company, but those two games have enjoyed five million organic and viral installs. [...]