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 [...]

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 [...]

The mobile game Honor of Kings has generated USD$1bn (£757.5m) through the month of February. By now, stories of free-to-play mobile games making extravagant amounts of money are relatively familiar, but the ramping success of TenCent’s ‘multiplayer online battle arena’ game (more commonly a ‘MOBA’) is particularly fascinating. The Chinese-made Honor of Kings is also known as Arena of Valor in various international markets. The figures come from Japanese investment outfit Nomura, as reported by cifnews (via PocketGamer.biz). Honor of Kings has long been [...]

Nintendo has revealed it is making an atypical move into virtual reality; Switch users will just have to build their own headset. The news comes after the gaming giant announced the fourth release in its Labo line, which provides the Switch with a highly distinct hybrid of game and construction toy. Labo kits contain everything players need to build elaborate mechanical controllers and other Switch peripherals. Each Labo kit also contains a game cartridge for the Switch, which includes lavish interactive building [...]

Computing hardware specialist Intel and Chinese tech giant Tencent are expected to announce a co-developed game streaming service at this month’s Game Developers Conference. The likely announcement emerged after a series of tweets from Daniel Ahmad of market research and consulting business Niko Partners. Convincing images shared by Ahmad appear to show a service capable of streaming 1080p games at 60FPS with a delay of <40ms. If gaming display and streaming specifications aren’t your thing, you can be assured they promise a [...]

Two current game business stories together highlight the stark dichotomy at the heart of China’s games market. As revealed in a new report from business insight specialist IHS Markit, Chinese tech giants Tencent and NetEase saw extraordinary profit growth for their international mobile game releases through 2018. Simply put, combined mobile game net revenue gained in territories outside of China by Tencent and NetEase increased 500% in 2018 to USD$472m (£360m). Again, that figure relates to sales of games outside Tencent and [...]

Sony looks set to step away from the handheld gaming market, as production of the PlayStation Vita winds down in Japan. As initially reported by Gametsu, the news appeared on Sony’s official Japanese PlayStation website. Presently only black and ‘aqua blue’ coloured Vitas are manufactured in Japan; and they are now marked to note that “shipments are scheduled to end soon”. PlayStation had already confirmed Vita production would end in 2019, but it is now clear the discontinuation may come relatively [...]

New game ‘clipping’ service Medal has raised USD$3.5m (£2.7m) in investment. The success of the funding round appears to demonstrate that Medal’s short-form video clips platform has potential and appeal. Certainly, tech-savvy investors are apparently convinced. Medal lets users record the previous 15 seconds of their gameplay with a single click, bringing the approximate function of the ‘share’ buttons seen on console to the perennially booming PC market. Clips can then be shared as a generated link, or via the Medal [...]

Social Networking giant Facebook saw its mobile app downloaded more times than those of any other publisher globally in the closing months of 2018, according to a new report. The Facebook app was downloaded 800 million times through October to December last year, putting it a significant way ahead of the next best performing publisher, Google, which counted over 650 million downloads through the period. The numbers come from insights by enterprise-level data outfit Sensor Tower, which looked at downloads across both [...]

For all its snowballing success, esports arguably has a perception problem. Say ‘esports’ to those both inside and beyond the worlds of games, brands, and marketing, and they will perhaps imagine something like a vast arena with sweeping spotlights passing over 20,000 cheering fans, as pro players in heavily branded athletics jerseys do battle in a game like League of Legends. Perhaps a commentator will be unleashing flurries of jargon as a team manager nervously paces back and forth near the [...]