Fortnite vs Apple, CD Projekt, E3 2021: Business News of the Week

News business Fortnite vs Apple, CD Projekt, E3 2021: Business News of the Week

Nordisk Games invests heavily in supermassive games

We are currently working on The Dark Pictures: House of Ashes, Supermassive Games just announced that Nordisk Film, a Danish publisher, had acquired a stake in the studio through its subsidiary Nordisk Games. The amount of the investment was not disclosed, but we know that Nordisk now owns 30.7% of the Guildford-based studio in England. “(…) From the moment Joe and I met Martin Walfisz and Mikkel Weider, we were convinced that Nordisk would be an excellent partner for us and we feel privileged to have Nordisk Games’ expertise on our board of Directors. Our companies share a passion for creating beautiful games with stories that are emotionally engaging, and we look forward to working closely with them and their colleagues at Nordisk Film and Egmont. “, says Pete Samuels, CEO of the studio. On the Nordisk side, Mikkel Wielder was impressed by the studio’s openness to working with the goal of “Create the best storytelling games possible”. According to him, few studios are able to produce narrative titles of this quality and qualify this partnership as a great opportunity. As a reminder, the studio’s newest title is The Dark Pictures: Little Hope, set in a village steeped in dark tales of witchcraft.

Fortnite vs Apple: A new complaint from Epic Games against the Tim Cook company

Since last summer The tea towel burns between Epic Games and Apple. At this point, Epic is foregoing the App Store to sell its micro-products. A decision that was not at all to Apple’s taste and then removed Fortnite from the App Store. to believe that Epic had broken the rules

. While a trial version opens next May, Epic Games has submitted a new one Complaint against Apple for anti-competitive behavior by the NGO Competition and Markets Authority in the UK. Again, the complaint is primarily aimed at the App Store, through which all developers must set up microtransactions. According to Epic, Apple’s restrictive rules for distributing applications “violate the 1998 Competition Act.” In particular, we can read the complaint “By restricting competition and exploiting its monopoly through microtransactions, Apple is depriving UK consumers of the right to choose where their app comes from and blocking developers in a single market where only Apple can decide the percentage they take out of those apps “. With all complaints Epic has not made a claim for damagesto show white paws in relation to his motivations. As a reminder, the movement of E.Spotify, Deezer and MatchGroup joined pic.

Nexon invests in Hasbro, Bandai Namco, Konami and Sega Sammy

With a lot of money to invest, the Korean publishing and development company Nexon has decided to invest in several companies. As you can read above, that’s what it’s about Bandai Namco, de Hasbro, de Sega Sammy and de Konamiwho will share a total $ 874 million. However, Nexon notes that this is absolutely not a first step towards an acquisition, but rather a “friendly investment.” The goal is therefore prush the affected businesses and get a return on investment without taking great risks. Owen Mahoney, CEO of Nexon, said in a statement: These investments reflect our respect for the teams that create and develop global licenses over the years and decades. These investments represent a good use of our cash in a low interest rate environment and we are extremely pleased with the initial results. Although partnership building was not considered in our investment decisions, we are pleased with the dialogue that has been initiated with certain companies. As a reminder Nexon announced 2020 sales of $ 2.6 billionand owns Embark Studios, a development unit founded by Patrick Söderlund, former manager at EA and CEO of DICE.

CD Projekt begins a new cycle

After the big storm at the start of Cyberpunk 2077, the calm seems to be returning to the side of in the case of a CD project that is working on the title patches and completely restructuring its operation. From 2022 the studio will work in such a way that the development of several AAA projects at the same time. To this end, the teams are in constant contact thanks to a team of experts who are responsible for supporting the teams and centralizing production. This includes in particular a uniform use of the RED engine or even animations. The aim is to make everything smoother in order to be able to work on multiple projects. In addition, the studio half-heartedly admits that the communication around Cyberpunk 2077 was too long The next campaigns would be much shorter and the presentations more representative

Games.

In order to keep the licenses alive, CD Projekt will diversify the related content while developing the next few experiences. In addition, the ambitions are round Multiplayer will be checked. The studio wants now Keep these features in mind from the start of development Play and stop thinking about it separately. Yet “Single player role-playing games were, are and will remain (their) priority”. To support these changes, CD Projekt bought Digital Scapes, a Canadian studio that was renamed CD Projekt Red Vancouverand which will help with the technological aspect of the developments. For 2021, the studio will focus on Cyberpunk 2077 updates, the next generation port, and free content for the game, while The Witcher is entitled to its augmented reality game, a next generation patch for Wild. Hunt and additions to Gwent: The Witcher card game.

The Bloober team no longer wants to give up control of the company

The site VGCwho translated an article from the Polish site bankerannounces that the Bloober team we owe The Medium to Negotiations ended This would have enabled an investor to acquire a majority stake. According to the information collected, The company now wants to establish a cooperationto pursue the set strategic goals: “The company has decided not to continue discussions with potential financial and industrial investors interested in acquiring a majority stake as there is a high risk of losing its overarching strategic goals.”. In addition, the Bloober team will consider using its resources to invest in other studios. “At this point in time, this would not be compatible with the corporate culture and would significantly limit the potential for an increase in the value of the company in the years to come, particularly with regard to the projects carried out and planned.”also tells us the translation.

E3 2021: A format that is still being discussed

With gamescom and the Tokyo Game ShowWe feel that there is a real desire to get physical events back on their feet, at least partially. However, Eyes are currently on E3

, less and less interesting for publishers over the years and canceled last year due to the pandemic. A few months ago, ESA, the show’s organizer, announced am working on a new formulathat seems to be slowly taking shape. The American federation has apparently chosen a digital format with the aim of recreating a uniform event over a whole week. The latest information is from VGC Who would have had access to documents related to the project? E3 2021 would start on June 13thand would change the meaning of 3rd E. So we would no longer speak of Electronic Entertainment Expo, but of‘Electronic entertainment experience.

Despite everything, nothing would be done as negotiations with the editors were still ongoing. Indeed, ESA has to convince them to go through this event instead of organizing their own presentations. The organization would have planned for this A whole program that revolves around a purposely built stage, an award ceremony and an application In this way, all participants can organize their meetings. In addition, the idea would be too offer many demos to the publicFor example, through a partnership with NVIDIA and its GeForce Now service. According to the VGC, the ESA would even prepare a top notch paid experience, offers some bonuses and additional features, what was denied. At this time, ESA has not officially detailed its plans, but is pointing out “We have worked hard to bring a free experience to everyone interested in E3 2021 and we look forward to sharing more details soon.”

Briefly in the business news of the industry

• Monster Hunter Rise starts strong with 4 million physical copies distributed in 3 days in the world and with 1.5 million copies sold in Japan
• Assassin’s Creed Valhalla storytelling director Darby McDevitt has announced that he will be leaving Ubisoft.
• In 2020 TiMi Studios (Call of Duty: Mobil, Arena of Valor, Contra Returns) were generated a turnover of 8.5 billion dollars. This corresponds to 40% of Tencent’s gaming revenue ($ 20 billion).
• 505 games announced the buyback for $ 5 million of the license Ghostrunner, the first episode of which was released in late 2020. The publisher had helped launch it, but the success of the title prompted the group to open their portfolio.
• Sumo Digital is coming to spend thatThe upper limit of 1000 employees announces a turnover of 80.8 million dollars. Due to the numerous investments, however, the net profit could be reduced from 8.8 to 1.9 million dollars.
• Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & the secret hiding place and Atelier Ryza 2: Lost Legends & the Secret Fairy ont distributed over a million unitsafter Koei Tecmo and Gust.
• Activision appointed Armin Zerza as CFO after the departure of Dennis Durkin.
• Gavin Moore, Director of Demon’s Souls Remake, left Japan studio After 24 years at Sony, 18 of them in Japan.
• Yohei Shimbori, historical director of the Dead or Alive series, has left Koei Tecmo. “I worked on Dead or Alive for 16 years and while I was satisfied at times, there were times when I didn’t live up to expectations,” he said.

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