Niantic hypes with Harry Potter title
Niantic, creators of Pokemon Go, the title which brought home ~1.8B in revenues in the first 2.5 years of its existence and more than $100M in the first two months of this year alone (according to AppAnnie) is hyping the public with its PR push around the long anticipated title, Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. Media including Mashable, Business Insider, The Verge, IGN and others bring the first glimpse of the game that will launch this year, likely just in time for summer. According to reporters who had access to the game, the game is set in the decade since Deathly Hallows, there has been a breakdown of magical order. The players volunteer for the Ministry of Magic. The player’s task is to collected “foundables” before Muggles notice what’s going on and each of foundables comes with a corresponding confoundable that the user will have to defeat with a spell. The users will be able to fight Dementors in the real world, step into Ollivanders wand shop in Diagon Alley and do much, much more.
Interview with Epic Games’ CEO
CEO and founder of Epic Games, Tim Sweeney, shares his thoughts with MCVUK. “I think the game business will change more in the next five years than the past ten,”, says Tim. Most of the interview revolves around Epic Store, them skipping Google’s PlayStore and Tim’s wishful thinking of Apple opening up its platform to alternative app distribution options. Read the full interview here.
All You Need to Know About DGaming
DGaming stands for decentralized gaming. A DGame is a game that either fully or partially runs on blockchain technology. Read more here…
News around the globe
- Konami is building esports centre in downtown Tokyo scheduled for opeining in November 2019. Once finished, it will house an esports arena, a shop for hardware and other products, and staff will offer esports classes to help grow interest in the industry and nurture new talent. More.
- Facebook is launching new Gaming Tab. This is meant to put together all gaming-related content under one tab accessible from the platform’s main navigation bar. This includes playable Instant Games, gaming groups, videos and livestreams. The Facebook Gaming tab will initially be rolled out to a small subset of Facebook users and will gradually be brought to the remainder of the platform’s audience of over 700 million monthly active users. Details.
- Take-Two settles copyright case with another GTA V cheat creator. The defendant Erik Cameron has admitted to copyright infringement, breach of the game’s End User License Agreement, and profiting off his violations of the law, and will pay Take-Two an undisclosed sum. Last October, a court order in Australia froze the assets of five others allegedly involved in creating the cheat in a case that’s still ongoing. In the US, Take-Two pursued two others — Cameron, and Christopher Pei, who settled shortly after the suit was filed. More details.
- Improbable opens first development studios in London and Edmonton. The studios will build online multiplayer games powered by the firm’s SpatialOS technology. Full story.
Notable new releases
Mobile Industry News 