Technology

• PepsiCo Planned Space-Based Orbiting Billboard for Gaming Ad Campaign

  3 days ago News

  

  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 [...]

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

  1 week 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 [...]

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• Epic Removes Problematic Player-Created Content from Fortnite

  1 week 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 [...]

• UK Games Market Grows 10% Through 2018, Hitting £5.7bn Value

  2 weeks ago News

  

  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. [...]

• Analysis: Apple Unveils 'Arcade' Subscription Service

  3 weeks ago News

  

  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 [...]

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

  4 weeks 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

  4 weeks 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 Two Roundup: Google Enters Gaming Market with Stadia

  1 month ago News

  

  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 [...]

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

  1 month 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 [...]

• What Does House of Lords Proposed 'Digital Authority' Mean for Games?

  1 month ago News

  

  A new report from the House of Lords has proposed the formation of a new ‘Digital Authority’ to monitor and even regulate technology companies, and make sure that UK law evolves in tandem with technology. As reported by the BBC, the document looks at tech firms’ management of data and privacy breaches, and their handling of problematic social behaviour over online platforms. The reports’ authors have branded responses to such issues as ‘inadequate’, and stress a belief that self-regulation on some [...]