1.
The Radio and Television Administration of China issued a notice this afternoon on strengthening the management of online show live streaming, emphasizing that online show live streaming platforms should implement real-name management to reward anchors.
The notice clearly stipulates that minors are not allowed to give rewards. This move is aimed at rectifying the chaos of huge rewards from minors that frequently occurs in the live streaming industry.
At the same time, the online show streaming platform should implement label classification management of the program content and corresponding anchors in the live room, and classify them according to “music”, “dance”, “singing”, “fitness”, “games”, “tourism”, “food”, and “life services”etc.
2.
Tomb Raider Reloaded Announced for 2021
Square Enix announces a new Tomb Raider game called Tomb Raider Reloaded, but it may not be what some players are expecting to see.
On the video game front, the Tomb Raider franchise has been quiet for some time. While news has been circulating around the series’ next film adaptation, no information on a new Tomb Raider video game has come about for a while — until today.
Square Enix posted a teaser trailer for a new game titled Tomb Raider Reloaded, and within seconds it becomes clear what kind of game is being presented. As opposed to a new, full-fledged console release, players will be getting to play as Lara Croft on the go come 2021.
Sporting a look resembling the version of Lara from the original Tomb Raider games as opposed to its modern reboot, the cartoony version of Lara certainly looks different from the one seen in recent years.
3.
“Time” released the 100 best inventions of the year. In the entertainment category, Microsoft’s Xbox Series S, Sony’s PS5, Nintendo’s “Animal Crossing”, and Nvidia’s cloud gaming platform GeForce Now were on the list.
The top ten games of the year selected are “Hades”, “Spider-Man: Miles Morales”, “The Last of Us 2”, “Among Us (Space Werewolf)” and “Animal Crossing: New Horizon”, “Ori and the Will of the Wisps”, “Call of Duty: Warzone”, “Microsoft Flight Simulator”, “Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout”, and “Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2”.
4.
Mobile measurement and marketing company AppsFlyer has announced an investment from Salesforce Ventures that the company says gives it a $2 billion valuation.
The venture funding arm of cloud company Salesforce joined a roster of investors in a late stage extension of its series D round led by General Atlantic earlier this year.
AppsFlyer has raised more than US$300 million since 2011. After receiving US$210 million in Series D round at the beginning of this year, AppsFlyer has continued to grow significantly, with more than 1,000 employees worldwide, and annual recurring revenue (ARR) over US$200 million. It is reported that the company plans to expand its scale in 2021 to support the ever-increasing customer demand in a privacy-compliant way.
5.
Indian Gov Ban 8 Chinese mobile games again.
24th Nov, Indian government declared a new round of Chinese-app ban including 8 mobile games.
The eight mobile games are Netease’s “Identity V”, Lilith’s “Iosland2”, Happy Element’s “BoxStar” and “Happy Fish”, NetDragon’s “Heroes Evolved”, “Conquista Online II”, MicroFun’s “Jellipop Match – Decorate your dream island” and “Munchkin Match:magic home building”.
What’s worth mentioning is that 4 games(“Identity V”, “Iosland2”, “Happy Fish”, “Munchkin Match:magic home building”) have already been banned and removed from APP store in 2018, which means there are only three games are influenced this time.
6.
According to Epic Games data, as of this year, the number of Unreal Engine users worldwide has exceeded 10 million, and the domestic MAU has more than doubled from last year. The number of domestic game customers using Unreal Engine also increased by 280% year-on-year, of which the number of mobile game customers increased by 533% year-on-year.
In addition, ACHOSAUR and LILITH also revealed their new works developed using Unreal Engine on this open day.The former is “PROJECT I” which is quite different from the style of ACHOSAUR games, and the latter is a wasteland shooting game “Afterglow”.
7.
Square Enix will let employees work from home permanently
Remote working: it’s not just for pandemics.
By and large, the games industry’s been having a tough ol’ time adjusting to life under the Covid-19 pandemic. But shifting to remote work hasn’t come without its upsides. Now, Japanese publisher Square Enix has announced that it plans to let employees work from home as a permanent option.
Now, the coronavirus pandemic has done a number on the games biz, with a third of developers reporting the outbreak had delayed their games back in summer. As expected, many (including Square Enix) chose to ditch offices in favour of living rooms.
We saw Bungie roll out “developer-grade” laptops to keep Destiny 2’s plans on track—but even with high-end gear at home, everyone from Blizzard to Failbetter had to come to terms with the strange new normal of developing games from their living rooms.
8.
Huawei will offer support to indie games developers that use its app distribution platform AppGallery.
The additional aid comes with a price pool of €30,000 ($35,681), as well as VIP technical support and a new featured section for indie games.
Indie titles that are published on AppGallery via the Unity Distribution Portal, between November 19th and December 4th could qualify for special grants.
For example, some may be granted 85 per cent IAP revenue share for the first two years. Furthermore, the top 30 indie titles will be awarded €1,000 in Huawei Ad Platform credit.
9.
The Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia is set to become the majority stakeholder of Japanese games firm SNK.
As reported by Bloter, and translated via The Gaming Economy, Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman will purchase the shares through the Electronic Gaming Development Company (EGDC).
According to the report, an agreement between EGDC and SNK has been made to sell 33 per cent of the games firm’s outstanding stock.
The deal is set to close on January 12th 2021 and could set the Crown Prince’s firm back ₩207 billion ($186.9 million).
10.
According to the latest data from Sensor Tower Store Intelligence, the total revenue of US mobile games in the App Store and Google Play in Q3 2020 will exceed 5.8 billion U.S. dollars, which is still the largest overseas mobile game market. Among them, App Store revenue accounted for 56.5%, Google Play accounted for 43.5%.
Among the popular mobile games, “Roblox”, which has been in the youth market for many years, became the biggest beneficiary of remote education due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In the download aspect, the phenomenon game “Among Us” topped the list with more than 24 million downloads.
Chinese game manufacturers have also made great achievement this year. 20 Chinese games were included in the Top 100 mobile game revenue list in the US with US$644 million gross revenue, an increase of 57% over the same period last year and 3.6 times that of Q3 in 2018.
