Dear friends,
Thank you for subscribing and sticking with Loot Box! Welcome to issue No: 13! Welcome to new subscribers. I'm extremely grateful to those who reach out with kind words and give feedback! Keep them coming and please share with friends/colleagues who might be interested in reading.
US video game spending hit a 10-year high in June
Video game spending in the US reached its highest point since 2010, according to a new NPD Group report, with sales through June reaching $6.6 billion on hardware, software, and accessories. It’s the highest total for the first six months of the year since spending hit $7 billion a decade ago.
Mobalytics raises $11M and adds eye-tracking metrics to its automated gaming coach
With the influx of fresh capital, Mobalytics will further develop its gaming assistant through better analytics and personalization. The company will also continue to add new games. Mobalytics has 31 employees and plans to hire more engineers and additional product experts in the next six months.
Mission Control Secures $1.75M Seed Funding Round
Mission Control uses an admin platform, for organizers, and a mobile app, for players, to gather communities by structuring recreational esports leagues.
Roblox launches Party Place, a private venue for virtual birthday parties and other meetups
For today’s younger players — the COVID kids, so to speak — platforms like Fortnite and Roblox are becoming their own version of a social network. The kids don’t just go online to play. They socialize, chat and hang out with a mix of real-life friends and virtual ones, blurring the lines between online and offline in ways that traditional social networks, like Facebook, do not.
Paradox Interactive Acquires Finland-based Iceflake Studios
Iceflake Studios was founded in 2007 and has developed games for PCs, consoles and for all current VR and mobile platforms. The studio is currently developing Surviving the Aftermath with Paradox, a survival management-strategy game now available in early access on PC and Xbox.
Nazara Technologies buys majority stake in Paper Boat Apps
Paper Boat Apps is the developer of Kiddopia, an educational gaming app aimed at children aged between two and seven. It has been downloaded five million times, and has more than 300,000 active users.
Super Evil Megacorp to launch Early Access for Catalyst Black
Catalyst Black will be a new kind of battleground shooter offering deep, strategic gameplay for any kind of playstyle alongside accessibility and a forward-looking multiplayer design. Our ambition for the drop-in, drop-out design is to provide immediate togetherness in our game experiences. We're incredibly excited to launch the Early Access Secret Service program and to work with the early player base to shape the final Catalyst Black experience ahead of global launch.
Here’s the early access trailer:
Bytedance is potentially making a move into esports
Bolt visual scripting is now included in all Unity plans
Dream Games (ex Toon Blast team from Peak) soft-launched their first game -Royal Match. (and removed it from the App Store). The art style and gameplay remind me of Toon Blast. It reminds me of Playrix’ x-scapes (more casual and extremely polished.)
Content worth consuming
The Imminent Ragnarok of M&A in Mobile Gaming Space 🔥
Deprecation of the IDFA will catalyze accelerated consolidation in the mobile gaming space. Smaller, single-game mobile gaming studios will see their growth trajectory obstructed completely and suddenly. The valuations of these companies will drop rapidly. Smaller developers will become desirable targets for large players in the market as portfolio accumulation becomes a predominant user acquisition strategy in the post-IDFA world.
Investing in Game Startups | Venture Capital ft. London Venture Partners, Konvoy, and Transcend
Great panel led by Joseph Kim
Jason Chapman, Konvoy Ventures (VC fund dedicated to esports & video gaming)
Graham Gockley, Transcend Fund (VC for games and digital entertainment)
David Gardner, London Venture Partners 👋🏻
How Flash Games shaped the video game industry
Looking at the number of games, reminds me of the recent hypercasual boom.
An Insider Look with Snap, GameRefinery, Department of Play and Liquid & Grit by Luna Labs
Here’s an interesting thread by The Last of Us Part II’s sound designer about the games breathing system:
Have a great weekend,
Emre
Curated by Emre Colakoglu, an experienced product manager and data scientist working in gaming. I’m based in London (now in Istanbul). You can find me on Twitter, my website and LinkedIn.
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