Loot Box #14: This Week in Gaming
Gaming infrastructure and tech providers database, M&A news and Tim Sweeney interview..
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📈This Week in Numbers
50% - Over half of US kids are playing Roblox, and it’s about to host Fortnite-esque virtual parties too
$6.9B - SuperData raises XR forecast for 2020 to $6.9 billion
Superdata expects VR hardware alone to net a total of $2.5 billion in 2020, a slight rise from the previous year; total XR sales would also be up, from a 2019 total of $6.2 billion.
$1.46B - Electronic Arts Earnings Show the Power of the Stay-At-Home Trend
Net revenue soared to $1.46B, topping estimates calling for $1.05B. Of that, $1.1 billion came from the live services and other categories, while the full game category brought in $359 million. Live services are generally in-game items, perks, and added content purchased after the game is sold.
$300M - Vindex raises USD$300m (£232m) and acquires GAME’s Belong
New York-based esports startup Vindex has raised USD$300m (£232m) in funding from as-yet undisclosed sources, and will acquire UK retailer GAME‘s Belong Gaming network of gaming sites in a deal valued at approximately USD$50m (£39m).
$250M - Roblox developers set to earn $250 million in 2020
[Undisclosed] - Huuuge Games acquires Double Star 💫
$42M - Epic Games provides over $42 million in Epic MegaGrants
$17.5M - Players spent $17.5m during Pokémon Go Fest 2020
$9M - Moss dev Polyarc secures $9m investment to branch into augmented reality
The round was led by Hiro Capital. Industry veteran Ian Livingstone, one of Hiro's founding partners, will join Polyarc's board of directors. Moss is a virtual reality adventure game developed and published by American video game development studio Polyarc. The game is presented from a blend of first-person and third-person perspectives, with a primary focus on solving puzzles.
🍿Good Content
The Economy of the Metaverse per Tim Sweeney
Joseph Kim interviews Tim Sweeney (founder of Epic Games). You can find the full transcript here. This part particularly stuck with me:
So it will be a massively participatory medium of a type that we really haven’t seen yet. And even though you have Fortnite and Minecraft and Roblox each manifest some aspects of it, I think we’re still pretty far from having the thing. But yet the talk about this thing is it’s not just the work of one company. It’s not just one company’s product or revenue stream. We’re talking about a mass participatory media, which needs to be an economy if there’s not an economy underlying this thing.
And companies will be able to form to create content that builds out this world. People won’t be able to profit from the work and would just be another big tech company extracting money from yet another business.
And so the critical thing with this effort is to build out not just a 3D platform and to have technical standards, but also a fair economy in which all creators can participate, make money and be rewarded in an economy with both the principles ensuring that customers are treated fairly, that there is not, you know, massive fraud or scheming or scams. But also one in which companies have the freedom to release their own content and to profit from it.
Watch below:
How MSCHF managed to dominate the internet — with fun!
On his own time, Gabriel Whaley kept circling a single question: “How do you just create something that will naturally spread across the internet without having to resort to hacking an algorithm on Facebook or optimizing for what YouTube wants to see?” Lo and behold: MSCHF, a company that’s the answer to that particular question.
Whaley is also aware of how internet culture is changing, which is about what you’d expect from someone who spends a lot of time thinking about how to make art online. “The internet is just becoming pretty creative,” says Whaley. “People are finding ways to kind of like, bring some levity to the situations we’re dealing with. Like all these horny people on Twitter, they’re just being funny, right? Like, it’s actually funny. This isn’t people being gross, or, like, inappropriate.”
An Insider Look with Play Ventures, Deconstructor of Fun, Elite Game Developers and Mail.Ru Game Ventures by Luna Labs 💫
Deals and funding rounds are still happening despite Covid-19.
Lots of investments are going into startups building for the “metaverse.”
However, there’ll likely be smaller rounds for startups at later stages of funding, as Limited Partners feel the impact of the economic downturn and focus more on sure bets.
M&A in 2020 has focused on cash cows.
Smaller companies need to achieve greater scale before M&A picks up again in the longer term, as the mid-tier is hollowing out.
Look out for Traplight Games and Reworks, cloud gaming, platforms that encourage user-generated content, and games building virtual worlds that allow for self-expression and shared experiences.
Peeking into Valorant’s Netcode
Riot Games share some of the technical details behind how they’re addressing some common issues in the FPS genre - peeker’s advantage, poor hit registration, and simulation divergence.
Nintendo, Disney and Cultural Determinism
Great analysis by Matthew Ball on Nintendo’s amazing culture and why it doesn’t want to be Disney, or Tencent, or Activision Blizzard but it wants to keep being Nintendo.
New Nikes Are A "Gamer" Tribute:
Have a nice weekend - until next week!
Emre
Curated by Emre Colakoglu, an experienced product manager and data scientist working in gaming. I’m based in London. You can find me on Twitter, my website and LinkedIn.
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