The Aquilini Group is going big to launch Vancouver’s upcoming Overwatch League team, naming the team the Vancouver Titans. The Titans’ colors will be blue (primary), green (secondary), and white (accents) to “represent Vancouver’s greenery surrounded by the Pacific Ocean. The colour shades signify a vibrant, contemporary take on the Vancouver Canucks palette, but still allow the Titans to develop their own West Coast style.” The Titans logo features a sasquatch with the monogram of a ‘V’ in the nose for Vancouver, and a mountain range on the top of its head.
Meanwhile, the final expansion team for Overwatch League revealed its branding monikers, as Washington Esports Ventures, led by Mark Ein, announced the official name and identity for the Washington, DC expansion team. The squad will be known as the Washington Justice, flagged by the official team colors of red, white, and blue.
Fnatic and global music streaming service, Deezer, unveiled the new ‘Sound of Fnatic’ experience designed to “bring fans even closer to the tunes that motivate and inspire their favorite players.” The deal will allow fans to discover a variety of tunes from one of the three Fnatic playlist categories – Fnatic Moods, Music Mondays and Player Playlists, which sees 18 Fnatic players from a variety of games personally hand-pick and create dedicated playlists to share with fans.
Beasley Media Group’s 101 WRIF-FM will team up with The Detroit Renegades to host the first ever Detroit Renegades ESPORTS Live! on Dec. 9 starting at 1p. The Detroit Renegades Fortnite Team will conduct live game play for fans while also hosting a slate of activities, such as workshops on gaming “like a pro,” question and answer sessions, meet & greets, fan signings and more. Checkpoint XP hosts.
Epic Games detailed plans to open its own digital distribution platform, titled the Epic Games Store, offering developers 88% of the revenue that their games generate, up from the 70/30 split offered by Steam. The Epic Games Store will serve a hand-curated set of games on PC and Mac, according to the announcement, but plans are underway to offer more games to more platforms next year. The platform will also offer a “Support-A-Creator” initiative that will reward YouTube and Twitch content creators for showcasing developers’ games.
Matchero, an online platform that enables game publishers and tournament organizers to manage esports events announced that the closure of a $2.7 million investment round. The financing was led by Seven Peaks Ventures, with aXiomatic Gaming also joining the round, while existing investors Madrona Venture Group and Vulcan Capital also participated in the financing. The investment will drive the expansion of the go-to-market and platform development teams, in order to support the global ecosystem of game publishers, tournament organizers and global brands that want to engage with massively expanding esports audiences.
theScore revealed a new monthly record for view views on its YouTube channel. In addition to topping 500,000 subscribers, the platform generated 15.6 million view views during the period. “theScore has built a large and highly-engaged audience of esports fans and we’re excited by the growth we’re seeing,” said John Levy, CEO and Founder of theScore. “We believe we are only just scratching the surface. As the esports industry itself continues to grow, theScore will be there to cover the stories behind the games and players esports fans love.”
Beasley XP’s Checkpoint XP announced plans to provide extensive coverage of the upcoming inaugural 2018 Boston Uprising Collegiate Cup. The live event will take place on Saturday and feature a 6v6 clash between the final four teams at Laugh Boston. The remaining teams are esports clubs from Boston University, Northeastern University, University of Connecticut and Emerson College. Team Checkpoint XP Casters’ Norris Howard and Robbie Landis will offer coverage for the CheckpointXP Channel on Twitch.
On Nov. 20, Riot Games EU announced the ten team organizations that would comprise the newly re-branded League of Legends European Championship (LEC) as their permanent partners. This follows last year’s franchising of the North American League of Legends Championship Series (NA LCS). FanAI looked into the fan bases of both regions’ partners to see what each brings to the table. When grouped by league, the North American partners have a clear lead over the EU organizations. Of the fans who follow any of the partnered teams, 60% of fans only follow the NA partners. The smaller fan base of the LEC could be a critical factor in the growth of the long-term partnerships. Fewer fans mean that the team organizations must rely more on the social followings of their players to provide a high value to potential sponsors. The small fan base also means that there is a high opportunity for growth, especially when considering how well the EU region performed at the 2018 League of Legends World Championship.
Tonight’s edition of The Game Awards will see more than 10 new games unveiled during the event. In addition, the show will see a lineup of presenters this year that will include Avengers directors Joe and Anthony Russo; Stranger Things showrunners Matt and Ross Duffer; and actors Jonah Hill, Joel McHale, Christoph Waltz, Aisha Tyler, and Phil Spencer. In addition, Hans Zimmer will be join Mission: Impossible – Fallout composer Lorne Balfe who will be conducting the orchestra. This year’s show will be streamed via Twitter, Facebook, Mixer, Steam TV, IGN, GameStop, Polygon, MLG, Caffeine.tv, PlayStation and Xbox. The event will feature 45 distribution partners around the world.
A new study from data analytics and research platform Playgroundz found that while women still make up about half of the gaming industry (and are on pace to surpass the number of men as gamers by 2020), only 30% of gamers on YouTube, 22% of esports team members, and 19.5% of gamers on Twitch were women, per MCVUK. In the mobile gaming sector, 68% of mobile gaming revenue comes from women. In addition, since 2016, hours per week gaming for those ages 15-19 has increased by 33%, and adults age 55+ have increased their gaming by 16%.
Fortnite is unearthing Fortnite Creative on Dec. 13, a new sandbox mode for the game that allows players to create their own Fortnite island, complete with the ability to create structure. Players who buy the Fortnite: Battle Royale season seven Battle Pass starting today will be granted early access to the mode. Fortnite Creative will also allow players to generate custom scenarios for their battles.
Super Evil Megacorp, the company behind MOBA title Vainglory, is launching a strategic partnership with Chinese internet giant NetEase, to support Vainglory’s 4.0 cross-platform launch in China. Super Evil’s strategic partnership with NetEase will support the cross-platform launch in China. In addition to Windows and macOS, the company plans to release Vainglory on console later in 2019.
