TheGamingEconomy’s Daily Digest brings you the trending stories in gaming. In today’s news: Nintendo and Tencent announce joint press event; conversational developer Doppio secures €1m (£897,000) in seed funding; and Football Manager 2019 sells more than two million copies. Nintendo and Tencent announce joint press event Nintendo and Tencent have announced a joint press event on August 2nd in Shanghai, with the main topic of discussion reportedly being the launch of the Switch console in China. The move comes after days of [...]

TheGamingEconomy’s Daily Digest brings you the trending stories in gaming. In today’s news: Amazon hiring for gaming ‘stealth advertising innovation’ team; Microsoft investing USD$1bn (£799m) in OpenAI; and Tencent invests in Antstream. Amazon hiring for ‘stealth advertising innovation’ to disrupt gaming industry Amazon is hiring for two roles as part of a ‘stealth advertising innovation’ team with the aim of disrupting the $100bn (£80bn) gaming industry. It is unclear whether the positions will be under the Amazon Advertising platform or as part [...]

Following an increased presence of gaming developers and publishers at advertising industry events, such as Cannes Lions and DMEXCO, within the previous few years, along with technical innovations such as the roll-out of 5G, now could be the time when the worlds of advertising and gaming become more intertwined. ExchangeWire speaks to James Draper, CEO of Bidstack, for an explanation as to why both circles are now examining in-game advertising options more closely, along with what safeguards need to be put [...]

TheGamingEconomy’s Daily Digest brings you the trending stories in gaming. In today’s news: Nintendo faces lawsuit over defective Switch Joy-Cons; EE launches partnership with Niantic; and Blizzard co-founder Frank Pearce announces departure after 28 years. Nintendo faces lawsuit over defective Switch Joy-Cons Nintendo of America is facing a class action lawsuit, filed by Chimicles, Schwartz Kriner & Donaldson-Smith in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington, over defective Joy-Con controllers for the Switch console. The purported issue relates [...]

Canadian game dev and blockchain infrastructure outfit Horizon Blockchain Games has completed a USD$3.75m (£2.97m) seed round. Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian’s venture fund Initialized Capital led the round, which was also supported by Golden Ventures, Polychain, Coinbase, Digital Currency Group and Inovia Capital. The seed round is likely to be a significant boon to bringing Horizon’s game SkyWeaver to market, and to the further development of the company’s blockchain video game network Arcadeum, which is pitched as a ‘crypto arcade’. Backing by [...]

TheGamingEconomy’s Daily Digest brings you the trending stories in gaming. In today’s news: Ubisoft surpasses Q1 2019-2020 targets; Nintendo announces update to Switch; and DouYu goes public with USD$775m (£624m) Nasdaq IPO. Ubisoft surpasses Q1 2019-2020 targets Despite not releasing a major new title within the first quarter of the 2019-2020 fiscal year, Ubisoft has smashed its projection for the period, earning USD$352.8 (£314.5m). This likely reflects the fact that players are perhaps staying with games longer thanks to a range of [...]

London-based studio Pixion Games has revealed that it has secured USD$2m (£1.6m) in seed funding to further its efforts developing mobile titles specifically geared towards esports. Private investment firm Eldridge Industries led the round, with contributions from Jabre Capital Family Office and three angel investors. As well as being used to develop the studio’s games, the funds will also be used to scale the team, which presently boasts talent formerly serving at King, Curve, Hutch and Konami. So far that reads like [...]

TheGamingEconomy’s Daily Digest brings you the trending stories in gaming. In today’s news: Private equity firm Blackstone buys Vungle; Tencent launches streaming app for WeGame; and Baidu renews partnership with Snap. Private equity firm Blackstone buys Vungle Private equity firm Blackstone has announced it is purchasing performance marketing platform Vungle, which serves in-app video ads with publishers including Rovio and Zynga. While the exact terms of the deal have yet to be disclosed, sources have informed Techcrunch that the all-cash payment is [...]

TheGamingEconomy’s Daily Digest brings you the trending stories in gaming. In today’s news: Niantic shuts down Field Trip; Growth slows on Twitch; Respawn forces cheaters to fight each other. Niantic shuts down Field Trip Niantic has announced that it will be shutting down its first mobile app, Field Trip, later this year. The location-based tour guide app was released in 2012, when the developer was in its former guise as Niantic Labs, an internal subsidiary of Google. While it is not unusual [...]

TheGamingEconomy’s Daily Digest brings you the trending stories in gaming. In today’s news: Monolith Soft doubles year-on-year profit, opens new studio; Fiverr launches ‘industry store’ for gaming services; and Ubisoft criticised for sourcing music through HitRecord. Monolith Soft doubles year-on-year profit, opens new studio Nintendo subsidiary Monolith Soft has announced that it has opened a new studio in Osaki, Tokyo, following a year in which the developer saw its profits almost double from JP¥138m (£1.02m) to JP¥274m (£2.02m). Originally founded in 1999 as [...]