In the first TriplePoints of Interest of 2017, the big stories this week center around an Overwatch milestone, Switch prediction, and a new tabletop-focused version of PAX.
It’s 2017. Welcome to the future!
In the first TriplePoints of Interest of 2017, the big stories this week center around an Overwatch milestone, Switch prediction, and a new tabletop-focused version of PAX.
It’s 2017. Welcome to the future!
New Chinese law mandates loot box odds must be published by gaming studios, esports is coming to the White House, and GamesIndustry.biz posted an annual shortlist of influential individuals and teams in the video game industry — all in this week’s edition of TriplePoints of Interest!
Continue reading TriplePoints of Interest – Week of December 5
The content creator market is maturing and growing. Bigger and more established companies are beginning to see the value in investing in the space, and nowhere was that more apparent than at TwitchCon 2016. For the second annual event, TwitchCon relocated to San Diego and we began to see Amazon’s impact on Twitch start to take shape for the first time. Below are three observations on how the future of Twitch will be impacted by Amazon.
First off, the announcement of Twitch Prime made clear Amazon’s desire to integrate more directly with Twitch. Twitch Prime is an extension of their regular Prime service that adds perks specific to Twitch users, which, surprisingly, does not come with a price increase. It’s the first time that Amazon has extended Prime beyond their own core brand, and the perks for the inaugural month were as follows:
Free game loot – Tyrande Hearthstone hero, copy of Streamline, Paladins Bomb King weapon skin
Discounts on new-release box games
Ad-free viewing on Twitch
Exclusive emote & chat badge
One free channel Twitch channel sub per month
Everything else included with Amazon Prime
Second, Amazon has started positioning Twitch as a digital game storefront with Steam-like functionality by introducing a “Game Details” page and supporting Twitch Launcher software. Amazon first introduced this new functionality by including a copy of Streamline in Amazon’s Twitch Prime service. The “Game Details” page is just an addition to the page that each game already has in the Twitch directory. This page contains screenshots, a trailer, and a download/purchase link. Once downloaded, the new game can be accessed and managed in Twitch Launcher.
This new functionality will make for an interesting customer browsing experience, as they have immediate access to see who is streaming it or who has made videos of the game. Additionally, when a Twitch Partner streams a game that is a part of this system, they get a referral link that their viewers can use to go purchase the game. Twitch incentivizes the streamer to participate by giving them a 30% cut of each sale. Right now, the only game in this system is Streamline but there is no doubt more will be added.
Finally, Amazon hosted a launch party for their new game studio’s first titles: Breakaway, a “mythological sport brawler,” New World, and Crucible, that will surely set the tone for how other gaming companies participate in the event. Of course, all three titles have promised a high level of Twitch integration such as the announced Stream+ feature, which has similar functionality to Proletariat Inc’s Streamote.tv. Amazon’s launch party was experience-oriented and put the games front and center with attendees, offering demo access and alpha codes (etched on heavy metal coins, no less).
It‘s quite clear that Amazon plans to use their purchase of Twitch to further their initiatives, which is great for gamers and content creators. Amazon seems keen to make use of Twitch streamers’ influence on their viewers to create a store/publishing platform. How this plays out in a Steam-centric world will be interesting. Any more methods they can create or provide for Streamers to monetize their shows, in a way that benefits viewers, is great for the market as well. In short, TwitchCon provided us with plenty of evidence to be optimistic about what Amazon will be bringing to Twitch in the future.
There’s been tons of branding shifts, from Blizzard renaming its multiplayer game service Battle.net; Riot Games’ new title is a board game; and Ubisoft launching its very book publishing house to boost its cross-media brand power — all in this week’s TPOI!
Continue reading TriplePoints of Interest – Week of September 19
This week’s TriplePoints of Interest features Twitch’s acquisition of Curse, Facebook and Unity are creating a gaming platform, Paragon’s open beta is playable on PS4 and PC, and Blizzard trolls “gg ez” trolls in Overwatch.
Continue reading TriplePoints of Interest – Week of August 15
We’re proud to say that we’ve been INCREDIBLY busy with the launch of Pokémon GO, an understatement considering the social phenomenon it has become in just a week since launch! The news cycle was dominated by the game, as we’ve outlined below, and all of us at TriplePoint have also been busy exploring the world in search of our favorite Pokémon. Head to our website at www.triplepointpr.com for a little Easter Egg, and input the Konami code for a pleasant surprise. Continue reading TriplePoints of Interest – Week of July 11 – Featuring Pokémon GO!!!
Tencent is now the proud owner of Clash of Clans thanks to their most recent acquisition. The Chinese publisher continues to establish its dominance in the mobile space. Over in Korean, a female Overwatch pro-player gets accused of cheating because she’s “unbelievably” good. In other news, we’ll be crying over our empty wallets as Valve launches off its annual Steam Summer Sale. Continue reading TriplePoints of Interest – Week of June 20
In TPoI this week: Blizzard adds Facebook login and Live integration, Horizon: Zero Dawn gets delayed, and Microsoft nixes the TV DVR feature for the Xbox One.
For this week’s TPoI: Overwatch is still king, Microsoft and Mojang shut down advertisers, and Michel Guillemot plans his resignation from Gameloft. Continue reading TriplePoints of Interest – Week of May 30
Calling all agents: Overwatch has finally launched this week — and we’re not the only ones excited about it! The game has been getting rave reviews and the hype train shows no signs of stopping. In other news, Tencent could soon be the proud owner of Clash of Clans, and the company behind Rolling Stone will be adding a new site devoted to gamers.
This week in TPOI, Nostalrius, a private legacy server for WoW, shut down to the dismay of its many players. Rust also stirred up a bit of controversy by randomly assigning genders and races to players, but still managed to keep up its outstanding sales numbers. Oh and ESPN has also started investing in drone racing.
Goodbye, Nostalrius
World of Warcraft’s largest private server, Nostalrius, closed on Sunday night after receiving a cease-and-desist order from Blizzard earlier that week. According to Blizzard, private servers violate the company’s terms of use. The popular server, run solely by enthusiastic volunteers, was known for their support of a vanilla version of WoW and boasted over 150,000 active accounts. The forced closure drew a significant amount of backlash from the community and many felt that Blizzard should have supported the nonprofit fan project despite the illegal nature of the server, reports BBC. According to Polygon, in the days leading up to the closure, many players paid tribute to Nostalrius through a pilgrimage march from Orgrimmar to Thunder Bluff, while other fans posted footage of the crowds that gathered for the server’s final moments.
Rust Throws Gender and Race into the Mix
Rust, a multiplayer survival game still in Steam Early Access,has found itself in a strange intersection between controversy and impressive success. The game recently introduced an update that randomly assigned players a race and gender (mixing up the completely white, male character population it had earlier). The change has received both extreme criticism and praise from the community. Developer Garry Newman posted an interesting article on the feedback received after the update in The Guardian. Despite all this, Rust has reported hit 3.5 million in game sales, reports GamesIndustry, heralded as “a paragon of the creative potential of Early Access”.
ESPN Gets Their Drone Racing On
Drone racing is getting serious. ESPN has recently signed a broadcast deal with the International Drone Racing Association. Drone racing features fast-flying drones that navigate through preset courses, while racers don head-mounted displays that show them the view from the drone’s front camera. The network will stream the 2016 Drone Racing Championships on ESPN3, with an hour-long special on ESPN2 and potential other channels. Tech Crunch notes that drone racing may someday get its own vertical, much like ESPN’s efforts with eSports like DotA 2 and League of Legends
Oculus starts off the week with the highly anticipated Rift launch, Blizzard listens to its fans and pulls a controversial pose from Overwatch, and Twitch takes a gamble on mobile-MOBA Vainglory — all in this week’s TPOI! Continue reading TriplePoints of Interest – Week of March 28
Following the highly anticipated release of Jonathan Blow’s The Witness, we finally dig into the outstanding first week numbers! In other major news, Glu Mobile looks to recover from a shaky 2015 financial report, while Blizzard’s Hearthstone shakes up the game with new game modes and more deck slots! Continue reading TriplePoints of Interest – Week of February 1
This week: new challengers approach the arena in Super Smash Bros., Riot Games gets bought by Tencent, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens kicks off to a great start! Continue reading TriplePoints of Interest – Week of December 14
This week: the 2015 Game Awards releases its list of nominees and controversial list of judges, a new Heroes of the Storm character sets out to change traditional MOBA mechanics, and Valve’s SteamOS scores some bad grades.
Continue reading TriplePoints of Interest – Week of November 16