PAX Australia 2021 has been cancelled due the recent spike of COVID-19 cases in the country. The in-person event was supposed to take place in Melbourne on October 8-10 has now been postponed to next year. “At the start of the year, we were optimistic that we’d all be able to come together in person this October,” said Reedpop, the [...]
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Over the past year or so, we’ve been keeping tabs on the still ongoing Epic Games vs. Apple antitrust lawsuit. But if you’ll remember, Epic Games also filed a similar lawsuit against Google for the same reason: pulling Fortnite from their storefront after Epic Games surreptitiously introduced a direct payment button within the mobile app. We haven’t covered this lawsuit [...]
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French video game developer and publisher Focus Home Interactive has acquired Paris-based developer Dotemu, a studio that specializes in retro-style games such as Streets of Rage 4, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge, and Metal Slug Tactics. According to GamesIndustry.biz, Focus bought out 77.5% of its fellow French studio’s shares for €38.5 million, or roughly $45.5 million. Dotemu will also [...]
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Activision Blizzard continues to feel the backlash of the ongoing sexual harassment and discrimination lawsuit as Bloomberg publishes a new exposé with firsthand accounts from former and current employees of the company. These employees further attested to the fact that the executives themselves were a party to the alleged frat boy culture and incidents of sexual harassment within the company. [...]
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Sega Sammy reported their Q2 2021 earnings report today with total revenue coming in at 59,447 million yen for the quarter ($450M). More interestingly though, the company continues to break down their top performing games. The top 3 revenue generating titles for the company were as follows: Project SEKAI COLORFUL STAGE! feat. Hatsune Miku, Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis, [...]
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Electronic Arts published their Q2, 2021 earnings report yesterday and in it they disclosed that Apex Legends, their hit battle royale game, averaged 13 million weekly active players during Season 9. The game also broke a new record for peak daily players, but a specific concurrent number wasn't disclosed. Just to put that 13 million "weekly active players" number into [...]
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Blizzard Entertainment President J. Allen Brack has left the company “to pursue new opportunities” amid the controversial sexual harassment and discrimination lawsuit filed against Activision Blizzard by the state of California. The announcement was made in a press release welcoming Jen Oneal and Mike Ybarra as the new co-leaders of the company the morning of yesterday’s Q2 2021 investor report. [...]
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Despite the recent backlash towards Activision Blizzard, the company reported strong Q2, 2021 earnings today with net revenues for the quarter coming in at $2.3B and net income (profit) clocking in at $876M, both figures ahead of expectations. Disruptions from the recent drama though wouldn't have effected Q2 numbers as the quarter ended on June 30, 2021. Activision delivered an [...]
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Tencent, one of the largest tech companies in the world, crashed ~6% (after being down nearly 11% earlier in the day) after Chinese media connected to the government referred to video games as "spiritual opium" in a scathing article about youth gaming addiction. Tencent's stock crashed in response in fear of greater regulation or a total crackdown on gaming. Other [...]
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Take-Two Interactive Software, the giant gaming company behind the hit Grand Theft Auto franchise, reported earnings today for the quarter ended June 30 (April-June). Revenues came in at $813M with net income (profit) coming in at $152.3M. While these headline numbers are impressive, what surprised me was that a whopping 70% of these revenues came from "recurrent consumer spending". This [...]
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