Kliuless? Gaming Industry ICYMI #19
Hi, my name is Kenny Liu, and I work in Revenue Strategy at Riot Games. Each week I compile a gaming industry insights newsletter that I share with other Rioters, including Riot’s senior leadership. This edition is the public version that I publish broadly every week as well. Opinions are mine.
See more or subscribe at: https://tinyletter.com/kliuless
PC/Console
- Unity scraps Terms of Service change in dispute with Improbable, schedules Reddit chat
- Related: ​Epic & Improbable team up for $25mm fund to bring SpatialOS developers to "more open engines"
- Valve working on new algorithmic recommendation tools for Steam, curating features
- Related: Epic Games store courting influencers and a younger, Steam-less audience
- Bungie breaks from Activision to publish Destiny on its own
- Tencent picks up 36% ownership of Warhammer: Vermintide 2 dev Fatshark
- Take-Two & NBA extend partnership in $1.1bn deal, more than double the previous licensing agreement made in 2011
- These were the most downloaded games on the PlayStation Store in 2018
- Related: Sony has sold 91.6mm PS4 systems worldwide since launch, and has >90mm MAU across its platforms
- Streamlabs: Twitch growth slows as streamers turn to YouTube and Facebook
Mobile
- Apple to launch three iPhones with new camera features this year
- Jam City announces $145m in strategic finance after layoffs and a multi-year development deal with Disney
- Solving the monetization problem in India
XR: AR/MR/VR
- At CES 2019, VR and AR took small but meaningful steps forward
- HTC Vive Pro Eye: Why the company added eye-tracking to VR
China
- China approves second batch of video games after freeze, but still no Tencent
- Blizzard & NetEase extend China publishing deal until 2023
Tech
- CES show reports: Steven Sinofsky, D2D
- Amazon is developing and Verizon is testing their own individual game streaming services
- Interview with Apple CEO Tim Cook
- Q&A with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang
Overtime
- Games of the Year 2018: Game Jam Edition
- Why video games are made of tiny triangles
- God of War full interview: "The definitive story behind the crafting of God of War"
- From Uncharted to Obra Dinn: Lucas Pope dishes on his illustrious game-dev career
- How Lambda School Raised $30M To Expand Its Income-Sharing Tuition Plan For Online Coding Students
See more or subscribe at: https://tinyletter.com/kliuless
Twitter: @kliuless
LinkedIn: @kliuless