Technology

• The End Isn't Nigh? A Look at the Triple-A Gaming Shares Slump

  2 weeks ago News

  

  Over the past days and weeks, a number of the global games industry’s major triple-A publishers have seen share prices drop as finical results have come in. Electronic Arts (EA), which this week saw its Fortnite challenger Apex Legends enjoy a stellar launch, saw its share price fall by a peak of 19%, with Bloomberg identifying disappointing sales of the first-person shooter Battlefield V. As highlighted by Bloomberg, EA’s adjusted revenue is expected to come in at USD$1.17bn (£902m) for the quarter [...]

• Ad Tech Spotlight: Synative Playable Studio

  3 weeks ago News

  

  There are two main reasons playable ads offer a beguiling option for game developers, publishers, and marketing teams. Primarily, of course, they give a player a chance to try a game without having to spend a penny or download a kilobyte. Equally, there’s a good chance that those who do click through and download the game are likely to be readily engaged, retained users who are more willing to spend money. After all, if they like the playable demo enough to step [...]

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• Google AI Triumphs Over 2 Esports Pro Gamers

  4 weeks ago News

  

  Last night, the Google-owned artificial intelligence outfit DeepMind gave us a taste of the future by pitching two esports professionals against a nonhuman player built from its proprietary technology. DeepMind has already seen its AI defeat world go champion Lee Sedol, in an astounding showcase of the potential of ‘general AI’; that is, artificial intelligence programs that can not simply carry out a specific function, but that can also learn from experience, evolve abilities, and make decisions. The ancient Chinese game go, [...]

• Amazon Rumoured to Be Developing Game Streaming Service

  1 month ago News

  

  Amazon may be joining Microsoft and Google in the race to establish a leading game streaming service. According to two insiders who spoke to The Information (as highlighted by GamesIndustry.biz), Amazon hopes to launch the unconfirmed service in 2020. Streaming games allows consumers to ditch expensive gaming hardware, discs, and even the downloading of content. That’s because the approach typically streams titles directly from the cloud, in much the same way that TV and film streaming platforms like Netflix function. Amazon, of course, [...]

• ironSource Debuts New Platform for Monitoring Return on Advertising Spend

  2 months ago News

  

  Mobile monetisation and marketing outfit ironSource has unveiled its new ROAS Optimizer platform, which offers users a means to monitor the return on advertising spend (ROAS). Only last week, we saw how advertising is increasingly valuable to casual mobile game revenues. But as the in-game and app-based advertising model continues to find a more established footing, its ecosystem is at the same time evolving into a rather complex beast. ROAS Optimizer hopes to address that complexity, while simultaneously automating bid optimisation with a [...]

• Letting off Steam? Fortnite Dev Lifts Lid on Epic Games Store

  3 months ago News

  

  Just days after Epic Games’ phenomenally successful Fortnite cleared 200 million registered users, the studio has announced that it is opening an online gaming store. When you you have already acquired an audience the size of Fortnite’s, that is a step with vast potential to disrupt the ecosystems of the global games industry. For over a decade, the Steam store has dominated PC gaming; and had an influence that has shaped the way games are designed, distributed, and marketed. Steam has arguably [...]

• Rebellion to Open Doors on £78.4m Film & TV Studio

  3 months ago News

  

  Long-standing independent UK game developer and publisher Rebellion has purchased a facility to convert into a film studio, estimated to be worth USD$100m (£78.4m). That might not seem the most obvious purchase for a video game company, but Rebellion has always confidently expanded its remit beyond its core business. The move equally reflects an ongoing convergence of the industries of game development, film, and television. That convergence to date has been defined most apparently by crossover in technique, technologies, and creative [...]

• Q&A: Reality Clash & the Arrival of Blockchain-Powered AR

  3 months ago News

  

  Reality Clash is an in-development mobile AR shooter that integrates blockchain, cryptocurrencies, dynamic in-game advertising, and geo-mapping technology into the gameplay experience it offers. Yes… there are a lot of tech buzzwords in that opening line. We’d only need to throw in AI and VR and it might seem like a parody of contemporary marketing parlance. But in truth, there’s often a meaningful reality hidden somewhere behind the hype of headline-grabbing tech trends. And it just so happens that Reality Clash [...]

• 'Non-Intrusive' Programmatic Advertising: The Future of AR & VR Monetisation?

  3 months ago News

  

  This week UK monetisation outfit Admix revealed that it had secured an impressive USD$2.1m (£1.63m) in funding to further develop its AR and VR advertising platform. As reported by Tech.EU, Admix was only founded in 2017, with a focus on allowing developers to place advertisements programatically that sit contextually inside content. A simple, hypothetical example would a be a VR game set in a sprawling city. Admix’s platform could allow a developer to assure that programmatic ads appeared only as billboards on [...]

• Mobile eSports as a Tool to Aquire & Retain: A Primer

  3 months ago News

  

  You don’t need to be a devoted games industry observer to have noticed something of the recent rise of eSports. Organised competitive gaming has been around along time, of course. eSports’ nascent form was forged in the earliest arcade gaming tournaments in the 1970s, where players competed to win a patch declaring their prowess; presumably to be sewn onto an oversized distressed denim jacket. By the 1990s the notion of a ‘pro-gamer’ making money from prize winnings was established, but even then [...]