What’s New and Weekly Gratitude
Welcome to issue No: 11! Welcome to our new subscribers from all around the world! (This week from Australia, Canada and France!)
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After spending last week in Ankara, I’m back in Istanbul. I met up with lots of small studios, gaming ecosystem is growing a lot. Life is almost back to normal (unlike in London). There are temperature checks everywhere and everyone’s wearing masks. I’m grateful that all my friends and family are doing ok! I’ll be spending the next few weeks in Istanbul so hit me up if you want to meet up!
📈 This Week in Numbers
$250M - Sony invests $250M in Epic Games
“Epic’s powerful technology in areas such as graphics places them at the forefront of game engine development with Unreal Engine and other innovations,” said Kenichiro Yoshida, president and CEO of Sony Corporation. “There’s no better example of this than the revolutionary entertainment experience, Fortnite. Through our investment, we will explore opportunities for further collaboration with Epic to delight and bring value to consumers and the industry at large, not only in games, but also across the rapidly evolving digital entertainment landscape.”
€8M - Traplight closes €8m investment round
Traplight is the developer of Battle Legion a mass auto-battle multiplayer title for iOS and Android.
$3.3M - Athlane looks to connect brands and esports streamers with a fresh $3.3 million in funding
Another esports investment round this week: The startup originally positioned itself as the “NCAA of esports” but, after some time in stealth, has taken a new approach. Athlane is looking to be the connective fiber between streamers and brands, facilitating sponsorship and endorsement deals with more transparent data and analytics and a streamlined communications flow.
$3 - Manticore will pay DIY game creators $3 per daily player
The PC-based Core has been in alpha testing for four months, and Descamps said he has been “blown away” by the growth of the creator community and the kind of games they’re creating.
“We’ve seen a huge amount of people joining for experiments and experiencing different things and they’re creating really cool content,” Descamps said. “We have organized jams and creation contests, and we’re getting things like a dark and twisted Alice in Wonderland.”
Manticore raised $30M last year to simplify the way high-quality 3D games are created and published, and in the process, to open up gaming to the explosion of innovative user-generated content that has transformed other media.
🍿Long Reads
☁️An Infrastructure Arms Race Is Fueling the Future of Gaming
💫Mapping The Gaming and Esports VC Landscape
White Star Capital believes that gaming is at the forefront of this likely evolution. As investors, we study opportunities for long-term growth that provide exposure to macro shifts such as the one we now face with the gaming industry. And through this lens, we explore several topics that are poised to disrupt the gaming value chain as the market evolves into its future state.
White Star is especially looking into these areas:
Games as social networks: players that reinforce network effects
Live streaming and esports that strengthen gamer engagement
E-commerce parallel in gaming
Enabling new experiences through gaming 2.0 technologies (Cloud, VR, and blockchain)
👾 The Netflix of gaming? Why subscription video-game services face an uphill battle
👆🏻Idle Game Resources
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been playing lots of idle games. For those who don’t know Idle Games are consists of clicking on the screen repeatedly ("grinding") to earn in-game currency.
Here’s a great GDC talk by Anthony Pecorella (now at Imangi Studios) examining the core and metagame loops of idle games and explaining why they are so compelling:
Idle Arks is currently my favourite one where you build an ark (after a flood), save other survivors and rebuild cities. The game is a mixture of Minecraft graphics with a very compelling storyline and lots of surprises. (It has really good rewarded video mechanisms and monetisation too). Highly recommended if you’re looking to build an innovative game.
I thought I’d share some articles and resources to get you up to speed if you’re looking to build idle games:
How to Make an Idle Clicker Game: Inside the Incremental Game Development Process
Numbers Getting Bigger: The Design and Math of Incremental Games
Designer Diary – Trailer Park Boys: Greasy Money: This one is by far my favourite, it’s not your conventional idle game. It’s a Netflix franchise with a very loyal userbase. According to AppAnnie, the game has 5.2M downloads generating a whopping $37M.. It also has a very active subreddit.
How Kolibri Made Idle Miner Tycoon | New Game Development Process
Here’s an esoteric video where a developer attempts to design a game better than AdVenture Communist: Part 1 and Part 2. (Spoiler: He’s making a third video)
Oh, by the way, The Sims is getting their own reality show, check out the trailer:
Have a nice weekend,
Emre
Curated by Emre Colakoglu, an experienced product manager and data scientist working in gaming. I’m based in London (now travelling in Turkey). You can find me on Twitter, my website and LinkedIn.
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