Kliuless? Gaming Industry Insights #59
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
Fundraising Free-for-All
- N3twork raises $40mm, welcomes former Lionsgate president to board
- Take-Two leads $20mm funding round into Spellbreak developer Proletariat
- Mythical Games raises $19mm for blockchain-based games with ‘player-owned economies’
- Ex-Peak team at Dream Games raises $7.5 million for mobile puzzle games
- Arkane veterans launch WolfEye: a small studio making big games
- Bunch raises $3.85mm for social mobile party app for gamers
Insights
- HBR: How to Design Product Pages that Increase Online Sales
- Sensor Tower: Apple Arcade may be accelerating premium game decline, but not by much
- Newzoo: How Men and Women Discover and Choose Games in the West
- Insights from Piper Jaffray's Generation Z survey of 9,500 U.S. teens
- Blog: Has the hypercasual game genre peaked?
Streaming
- Stadia nearly doubles line-up just days before launch
- Related: Google Stadia’s data use is over 100MB per minute at 1080p
- Amazon reportedly announcing game streaming service next year
- Microsoft's xCloud leaders discuss what they've learned (and still need to learn) about game streaming
- Amy Hennig’s new studio will make ‘story-focused’ games for ‘emerging streaming platforms’
XR: AR / MR / VR
- Half-Life: Alyx comes to PC VR in March
- Oculus Link beta hands-on: How Quest might kill Rift S for wired PC VR
- Lenovo plans sleek AR glasses that let PC users see multiple workspaces
- Facebook’s DeepFovea AI promises power-efficient VR foveated rendering
- Ubiquity6 launches Display.land app to capture, edit, and share augmented reality spaces
- New Star-Wars-like 3D display that simultaneously projects video, sound, and even the sensation of touch
Tech / Entertainment
- Sony establishes AI R&D division
- DeepMind’s MuZero teaches itself how to win at Atari, chess, shogi, and Go
- Disney+ surpasses 10mm subscribers on first day
- Related: Netflix & Nickelodeon form multi-year deal in wake of Disney+ launch
- TikTok tests social commerce
- Facebook’s first experimental apps from its ‘NPE Team’ division focus on students, chat & music
- U.S. Lawmakers Propose Bill Limiting Government's Use of Facial Recognition
- Related: Hikvision, one of China's biggest smart camera & face recognition companies, ran a marketing campaign promoting its ability to spot ethnic minorities
Overtime
- Paid subscriptions coming to Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp
- Blizzard 'has completely changed,' say Diablo's original creators
- Why ‘The Mandalorian’ cites Fortnite dev Epic Games in its credits
- How doctors used VR and 3D printing to save a 2-year-old with a brain tumor
- Iran has turned off the internet, reacting to ongoing protests
- HBR: Why “Connector” Managers Build Better Talent
See more or subscribe at: https://tinyletter.com/kliuless
LinkedIn: @kliuless