Game industry business news

Angry Birds Stella Pop shoots onto smartphone

Yes, there’s another Angry Birds game – Angry Birds Stella Pop has been released on iOS and Android. The game borrows branding and characters from 2014 release Angry Birds Stella, but also ties up with Outplay Entertainment’s Pop series to provide a branded bubble popping puzzle experience. We wanted Stella …

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Ubisoft RTS AirMech Arena coming to PS4 and Xbox One

Carbon Games title AirMech Arena will be released on next-gen consoles, publisher Ubisoft has confirmed. The game sees players controlling one of nine transforming robots tasked with both defending their own base and taking control of their opponents’. In truth it sounds a lot like a MOBA, although it is …

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Full Steam ahead: Here are Valve’s first 15 Steam Machine partners

GDC saw Valve’s PC-meets-console range of devices, the Steam Machines, burst back onto the scene. We run down the 15 different hardware partners set to bring their boxes to market later this year SYBER Price: $500 to $1,400 (332 to 929) Syber is a side division of previous Steam Machine …

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Tempo Storm recruits fighting game guru Chris G

One of Hearthstone’s leading eSports teams is striking out into the fighting genre. Tempo Storm has recruited Marvel vs Capcom 3 specialist Christopher ‘Chris G’ Gonzales, who has a number of tournament wins, although the prestigious Evo crown has eluded him thus far – despite reaching four successive finals. Gonzales …

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Football crazy – the story behind SoccerManager.com

When you think about football games, your mind probably drifts to FIFA, or perhaps PES and Football Manager. You probably don’t think of Soccer Manager Worlds, a ten-year-old franchise developed by the aptly named SoccerManager.com. Created by the Gore brothers, Andy, Steven and Chris, Soccer Manager is a free-to-play browser-based …

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CryTek predicts big things for CryEngine in VR

Crytek is currently experimenting with virtual reality and how its CryEngine technology can power such an experience. The company’s managing director Faruk Yerli said Crytek has big plans for the VR space, claiming that his team had "already found solutions" to dealing with motion sickness – an inherent problem with …

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Insight: It’s time for pay-per-view eSports

Jean-Charles Lacoste, MD of sports monetisation experts InPlayer, discusses what eSports businesses can do to generate better income Newzoo’s recent white paper said that eSports is now worth $200m and that this will more than double by 2017. Audience-wise, pro-gaming is predicted to match the 190m annual audiences achieved by …

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Boxed games prices reach new high in 2014

The average selling price of a game rose last year to over 31. That’s according to GfK Chart-Track and Entertainment Retailers Association, which said the average selling price of a game in 2014 was 31.40, a 6.7 per cent increase on 2013’s 29.43. This is due to the increase in …

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Supermarkets lose game market share to specialists and online retail

The game revenue share held by supermarkets decreased in 2014. Last year, supermarkets took a 25.8 per cent share of the UK games software market by value, down on the 29.7 per cent recorded in 2013. This is according to the latest data from Chart-Track and published by the Entertainment …

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