Kliuless? Gaming Industry Insights #57
Hi, my name is Kenny Liu, and each week I compile a gaming industry insights newsletter that I publish broadly. Opinions are mine.
See more or subscribe at: https://tinyletter.com/kliuless
Creative
- Designing the gameplay and aesthetic of Diablo IV
- Related: Blizzard explains how Diablo IV is different from Diablo III​
- Interview with Hideo Kojima About Death Stranding
- Related: Inside Kojima Productions
- HBR: The Kind of Creative Thinking That Fueled WeChat’s Success
PC / Console
- BlizzCon 2019: Every trailer and announcement
- Switch Lite isn’t cannibalizing the Switch
- Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is now the best-selling fighting game of all time
- Sony taps Horizon: Zero Dawn boss to lead PlayStation studios, while Yoshida steps down to focus on indie devs
Mobile
- Supercell shuts down Rush Wars after three months of beta
- Why casual games like Homescapes are adding midcore guild community features
- Mario Kart Tour multiplayer beta launching this December for Gold Pass subscribers
XR: AR / MR / VR
- Microsoft starts shipping Hololens 2 for $3,500
- Pokémon Go will get new AR features like shared AR and user-curated waypoints
- Related: One million locations nominated weekly for Niantic's Real World Platform
- Niantic enables small businesses to sponsor events in location games
- Niantic sets up $10mm third-party developer fund and names first dev contest winner
- Uplandme introduces Monopoly-like game based on real-world property and blockchain
- Buy $1 virtual versions of $1,000 designer shoes for your avatar on fashion gaming app Ada
Esports & Influencers
- In the escalating fight between Twitch and Mixer, YouTube is the real winner
- Esports tournament platform Mainline closes $6.8m funding round
- Juked.gg creates an easy way to watch your favorite esports broadcasts
China
- Improbable & Tencent Cloud team up to help devs bring games to China
- China’s minors face new limits on mobile games in war on gaming addiction
- China's regulator approved 22 new mobile games this week, including NetEase's Fantasy Westward Journey 3D
Tech / Entertainment
- a16z: The Passion Economy
- The State of Nvidia RTX Ray Tracing: One Year Later
- Unity acquires cloud application streaming service creator Obvioos
- BBC podcast interview with Disney CEO Bob Iger
- U.S. opens national security investigation into TikTok
- Inside the Rising Costs of Making a Scripted TV Series
- AT&T surprises with HBO Max price in battle against Disney and Netflix
Overtime
- Super Evil Megacorp raises $10.5mm, moves on to new game, and hands Vainglory off to Rogue Games
- Mobile & DLC maintained U.S. game spending despite 23% decline in PC and hardware sales this quarter
- Related: Content spending stagnating on PC & console as players gravitate toward fewer titles overall
- Gigabyte Launches a Water-Cooled External Graphics Card
- 'Nearly All' Counter-Strike Microtransactions Are Being Used for Money Laundering
- WP: Struggling at Fortnite or Apex Legends? Players and parents are turning to tutors
- Blizzard is adding ethnically diverse character skins with World of Warcraft: Shadowlands
- New top app Photo Roulette is an interesting combo of game and social network
- "You enter the game with a group of friends, and allow the app to access your camera roll. Photo Roulette randomly selects a photo from one person’s camera roll to display for five seconds, and you win points by guessing whose photo it is. The process repeats for 15 photos, when the game ends"
- Microsoft Japan's four-day week trial boosts productivity by 40%
See more or subscribe at: https://tinyletter.com/kliuless
LinkedIn: @kliuless