Blizzard Finds Live Stream Data Beneficial

Live streaming sessions of games have become a phenomenon over the years, and helped Twitch acquire over 100 million viewers on a monthly basis. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that many companies are turning to the stats from live streaming to help improve its business – and that includes Blizzard.

The publisher behind World of Warcraft, Diablo III and other eSports-friendly titles have begun using live streaming data to help shape certain aspects of the company, according to Silicon Angle. Said Kim Phan, senior manager of eSports for Blizzard Entertainment, “(Livestreaming) certainly has impacted the way our players experience our games. Usually, when people play the game, it’s what they do with the game directly. Now, with streaming, it’s a whole other way to experience it.”

Blizzard’s games have taken up a big chunk of time with players on Twitch, accounting for 17.4 percent of the total number of hours viewed for the month of March. Out of all the available titles, Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft was the most popular, with nearly half of that overall number.

“It’s very important now that we always have streams and we find out where our viewers are from and what languages they like to watch, and which games they enjoy,” Phan explained. “I think that the data has helped us learn a lot from that. I think it’s going to continue to evolve. It’s impacted us, I think, throughout the entire company; even how we market the game.”

But it’s not just a one-way street when it comes to Blizzard taking advantage of live streaming stats, as this method enables a more intimate connection with its community, and, in reflection, what work needs to be done with future content for specific titles.

“We do reach out to the influencers who are really involved in our game because we want to support them,” Phan said. “We obviously appreciate the work that they’re doing and the promotion that they’re getting.”

Other companies are following suit as well, with Square Enix holding a recent promotion to introduce its new Deus Ex game through Twitch experimentation. It’s possible, with E3 around the corner, that even more may turn to the live streaming channel, or similar services, in an attempt to bolster attention for certain games, as there are plenty making their way to the market for 2015.

Microsoft Makes Moves With HoloLens Games

When Microsoft sees a hot technology, it wastes no time making strides on it. Years ago, it catapulted motion gaming with the introduction of its Kinect device; and now, the HoloLens, which was introduced earlier this year, {link no longer active} is getting its full attention.

VentureBeat has reported that the publisher has already begun development on several games for the device and John Needham, formerly with Fable developer Lionhead Studios, has been brought in to help development for games that utilize both Xbox and HoLolens technology. With it, Microsoft intends to move forward into the virtual gaming world, before the likes of Oculus Rift and Sony’s Morpheus tech has a chance to hit the market.

Of course, HoloLens works differently than the usual VR gear, but it does provide the capability of putting gamers into virtual worlds with a number of franchises, such as Minecraft and Fable, with great technological tweaks. It could easily play a part in the projected $150 billion the market is projected to make by 2020 {link no longer active}.

Working alongside Needham is Kudo Tsunoda, who works as the head of Microsoft Studios’ portfolio of games, covering most of the company’s popular franchises, save for Halo, Gears of War and Forza. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because Kudo was one of the masterminds behind the Kinect’s initial success.

“Kudo Tsunoda will lead the vision and experience development of our other Microsoft Studios portfolio in the United States, Europe, and across our global publishing team,” said the company in a statement. “John Needham relocated to [Microsoft headquarters in] Redmond in a new role overseeing internal development for several games and experiences for both Xbox and Microsoft HoloLens reporting to Kudo. All [other] responsibility for Xbox [in Europe, Middle-East, and Asia] will be overseen directly by [Xbox boss] Phil Spencer.”

In the meantime, interested parties can check out the video below to see just what the company has in mind.

 

Global Games Market To Reach Over $90 Billion

Think games still aren’t doing big business? Think again.

Newzoo recently posted its 2015 Global Games Market Report {link no longer active}, which indicates that the overall global games market will reach an all-time high of $91.5 billion for this year, including mobile and consoles. That’s a 9.4 percent increase from last year’s $83.6 billion, indicating that the industry is still quite healthy when it comes to games.

Now the real question comes into play – which country is leading the charge when it comes to the growth of this market The United States has held a grasp for some time now, but the estimates indicate that China could easily take the lead this year. Newzoo reports that an increase of 23 percent this year is enough to provide an edge, even if it is a small one – its market is expected to reach $22.2 billion, with the U.S. closely behind with $22 billion.

As far as what size of screen players are adapting to in the market, Newzoo indicates that PC/Mac computers lead with an estimated 37 percent of the overall market, or $33.7 billion. Closely behind is the Entertainment Screen, consisting of console and virtual markets, with 27 percent, and Personal Screen (or mobile devices/smartwatches) in third place with 23 percent. Floating Screen devices (tablets and handhelds) take up the slack with 13 percent, although handheld game devices have seen a drop of 16 percent. However, tablet sales make up for it, leading to an overall growth of 14 percent for the Floating Screen market.

Virtual reality, which is expected to shake up the market this year with the introduction of various devices, hasn’t yet been considered with its own category, instead being coupled in with others. Smartwatches also aren’t being given their own group, despite the Apple Watch launching in just a few days’ time. However, next year’s report could certainly be different in that regard.

Meanwhile, both APAC and LATAM show growth overall for the year, with China closing in on the United States. APAC shows a 15 percent increase, with overall revenues expected to reach $43.1 billion; while LATAM will reach $4 billion this year, an 18 percent increase from previous numbers. That said, even if the United States does lose the lead, the market is not expected to saturate anytime soon, especially considering the popularity of all its devices, including consoles, mobile and PC/Mac.

The full report can be found here {link no longer active}.

Now Hiring This Week: April 22

[a]listdaily is your source for the hottest job openings for senior management and marketing in games, entertainment and social media. Check here every Wednesday for the latest openings.

Looking to change your career path S’well’s CEO, Sarah Kauss, has some advice for you.

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Vessel Raises $57.5 Million In Series B Funding Round

by Jessica Klein

Vessel has raised a total of $57.5 million in a Series B funding round, said sources close to the company.

The round brought back investors from the company’s Series A funding, including Benchmark, Greylock, and Bezos Expeditions, Jeff Bezos’ personal investment company, but was led by Institutional Venture Partners. Within IVP, general partner Todd Chaffee led the investment. This follows his investments with the venture capital firm in other digital video/social companies like NetflixSnapchat, and Twitter.

Chaffee gave Vessel a big vote of confidence in IVP’s blog post, stating, “If you had to back one team to build the world’s most advances and user-friendly video platform, this would be the team,” further citing CEO Jason Kilar’s track record as founding CEO of Hulu and extolling the platform’s video content.

Keep reading…

 

Kabam Shooting For Bigger Mobile Success In China

Kabam has certainly established itself in the mobile market over the last few years with several hit games – but that isn’t stopping the publisher from shooting for a loftier goal.

After receiving a whopping $120 million investment from Alibaba, the company now vows to create the first “billion dollar video game,” according to a report from Re/Code.

COO Kent Wakeford has noted that “we’re really going all in in China.” Its Beijing office, which was first established back in 2011, will move forward with plans to make games aimed at a Chinese market – a change of pace from its usual Western development. With a market of 700 million mobile devices, it’s going to be a big move.

Some restructuring of the company will take place, resulting in a loss of approximately 25 jobs, but in turn, it hopes to create a game that will reach the $1 billion mark in annual revenue – a goal that has yet to be reached, though Supercell’s Clash of Clans comes pretty close with its monthly earnings of around $80 million in in-app purchases.

Wakeford has high hopes for said game. “The real opportunity is what’s happening at the top,” he said. “Kabam is only one of a handful of companies positioned to go after the top of the market.”

As part of its transition towards this goal, output from 12 previous releases will be cut, with attention turned to four new games for release this year – “AAA mobile games,” as Wakeford notes.

Kabam is no stranger to mobile success, as its previous earnings of $400 million managed to top its previous year’s income of $360 million. But it has its work cut out for it if it intends to make a globally received game that can clear the billion-dollar mark.

Whether it can top the massive success of Clash has yet to be seen, but we certainly wish them the best of luck.

Brands Prepared For Apple Watch Launch

We’re just days away from the launch of Apple’s new Watch device, a piece of technology that promises to push wearable tech in a bold new direction. Whether it’s going to be widely accepted with an audience or not has yet to be seen, but several brands are already on board with an array of applications.

AdWeek broke down a number of companies that are on board with the device, providing efficient tools that users would utilize when it comes to the Apple Watch’s distinct features.

40 brands are signed up with the device thus far, although some are still preparing to get the most out of it. “Do I think most marketers are ready No,” said Mike McGuire, vice president of research for Gartner Research, regarding the device. “It is going to be about really having to nail this early on.”

One of the higher-end companies investing in an Apple Watch app is Starwood Hotels, which has poured in approximately $7 to $8 million into the tech, with a long-term goal of $20 to $40 million. With the app, guests will be able to remotely check in to their rooms, as well as access other traveler-related information, such as the approximate cost of taking a taxi to said hotel. 150 locations are already set to be tied in with the Watch’s launch this Friday.

A lot of work went into designing its app. “It can look deceptively simple, but to go through and develop it for our nine different brands (requires) a lot of design work and functionality under the hood,” said Stephen Gates, Starwood vice president and digital creative director for global brand design.

Other apps are taking advantage of the tech as well for consumer convenience. Target’s Apple Watch app enables voice and location-based technology to help customers put together shopping lists by finding specific products; Fandango has one that counts down to specific movie showtimes; BMW syncs with features on electric cars; and American Airlines enables flight reports to be displayed on the device in real time.

Not everyone is jumping in headfirst, however. Some companies are holding off on launching their apps until they see the effectiveness of the device in terms of sales. Michael Maginnis, president of the MJD Interactive agency serving car alarm manufacturer Viper, stated, “A lot of the feedback we’re getting so far is that it takes (consumers) a couple days to figure out why they even like the watch.”

Those that are launching apps, however, provided full details on them, which can be found here.

Blizzard Cleans Up With Free-To-Play Games

Blizzard announced today that its free-to-play MOBA Heroes of the Storm will be going live June 2 after a highly successful beta period, and observers expect it will quickly become one of the top MOBAs in the marketplace using the many iconic Blizzard characters featured in the game. Blizzard is building on the free-to-play success it’s found with already in the past year with Hearthstone. After being on PC and tablets for months now, Blizzard’s Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft finally made its way to Android and iOS smartphones this past week – and it’s making an incredible impact on the mobile market.

VentureBeat is reporting that Hearthstone has already become one of the biggest grossing games in various markets, according to data provided by App Annie. It’s number one on the iOS charts across eight countries, including South Korea, and in the top 25 for others, including Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. Meanwhile, over on Android, it has become number 43 overall in the U.S., a reasonable number for its debut.

With the debut of the highly popular game on smartphones, Blizzard should have no trouble contributing to the success of mobile games, which reached $30 billion in revenue last year and is estimated to top that number with ease. Blizzard has already debuted two new adventure packs, as well as a major expansion, which players have been eating up.

With heavy spending already reported in the game’s most popular regions – being the United States, Canada, China and Japan – it’s still bound to be a hit in this year’s mobile market. And who knows, Blizzard could introduce even more expansions to stretch its appeal even further. It has the kind of simple “pick-up-and-play” elements to bring in new players with ease, while at the same time packing in the kind of tactics that true masters can indulge when battling their friends.

Clearly Blizzard has found success with free-to-play games, and it seems logical that its recently announced Overwatch game may follow in the same monetization path, though that has not been announced yet.

Players can get their hands on Heroes of the Storm during an open beta beginning on May 19. Hearthstone can be downloaded by interested fans can here for iOS, and here for Google Play {links no longer active}.

App Install Ads Make Their Way To Search

Being able to tie in app install prompts to advertising can be quite effective for both a company and a consumer. The company benefits from more attention to given products, while the consumer has the convenience of installing an app on the fly, without needing to do an additional search through a separate program.

According to TechCrunch, a change has come to Google’s mobile search results for Android devices, which now provides a prompt that automatically ties in any mobile apps that fit in with the search inquiry. As a result, those consumers that were looking for apps relevant to their topic will now have a more direct opportunity to download them through the mobile search results page.

This could essentially mean a spike in business for developers that were looking to spread word-of-mouth on their potential apps. Google has already taken steps to assure that these programs could be found easier, thanks to the introduction of App Indexing back in 2013. This enables the search engine index content from certain apps to link through search results pages. The latest update makes it easier to do that, as relevant content can now be found via apps, even if they aren’t already installed to Android devices.

How deep does App indexing go now Approximately 30 billion links deep, according to Google. It didn’t state just how many developers would benefit from the program, but it’s easy to see that it’s going to be big business for some. App discovery will no doubt play a part in drawing a new audience.

“The goal is for developers to continue to create great content in apps and create deep links into that content so users who have particular questions can directly access that content,” said Rajan Patel, a principal engineer for Google that was close to the project, speaking with TechCrunch.

As far as when the program will grow even further – like to IOS and other mobile-based devices – Patel didn’t provide a timeline, but the team is certainly working on new ways to expand it, in the hopes of improving business for itself, participating developers, and, obviously, consumers that want to discover these new apps in the first place.

‘Star Wars’ Celebration Gives Fans A Force-ful of Fun

This year’s Star Wars Celebration is said and done, although its impact will certainly be felt within the science fiction-based universe for at least the next year, leading up to next year’s event that will take place in London in July 2016.

The four-day event, which was held in Anaheim, California, brought fans, celebrities and cosplay fanatics in droves, where nearly every corner of the Star Wars universe was tackled. I attended as well, and although it was only my second Star Wars Celebration event in the 16 years since it began, it still felt like I was home.

Obviously the new film The Force Awakens took an enormous focus, as a second trailer for the film debuted on Thursday and instantly drove fans into nostalgic overdrive. If early indications show anything, the film should have no trouble breaking box office records when it debuts on December 18. A report from Comicbook.com shows that it’s already shattered YouTube viewership records, with the trailer getting 88 million views in a 24 hour time period. That destroys the previous record of 62 million held by Furious 7 back in November.

The show was also the place for various panels that spanned the Star Wars universe, from talking with iconic stars like Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher to showcasing new products like the second season of Disney’s Star Wars Rebels animated show and EA’s forthcoming Battlefront game, which debuted with flying colors. The event also dug deep into more “hardcore” Star Wars elements, including tattoo competitions, comic books, art and much, much more.

Star Wars Celebration turned out to be immensely popular over the span of its four days, as all tickets sold out by the time it began, and thousands lined up the doors to take part in a number of exhibits, including a Battlefront X-Wing simulator that inputted players into the action. You can see my personal foray into this experiment below. (And yes, I’m already told that I look like Porkins from the original A New Hope film.)