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| Thursday, September 26, 2024 |
| Good morning! It’s Thursday, and this is your monthly Gaming Brief.  Let’s talk about Space Marines. As part of what seems like a monthly rise of a new mega-popular game title, Saber Interactive’s Space Marine 2 shot off the shelves to more than 2 million players just one day after its Sept. 9 launch. While the game’s franchise has deep roots, not just on PCs and consoles but in board games, figurines and plenty of other geek culture spaces, the latest 2024 blockbuster came as a surprise amid a crowded release calendar. Space Marine 2 is a hack-and-slash, third-person shooter game that mixes a progression system with mechanics that might be familiar to Gears of War and Helldivers 2 players. The game’s powerful campaign storytelling, enjoyable multiplayer gameplay loops and difficulty scaling have brought in both franchise loyalists and new fans alike. It’s safe to say action games are having a moment, with new takes on the genre climbing the player charts and offering a peek into what the games audience might be looking for moving forward. |
 GAMING NEWSOne of the biggest moments of the year for esports is underway, the League of Legends World Championship in Berlin. The nearly six-week tournament will also stop in Paris for the playoffs before heading to the O2 Arena in London for the championship on Nov. 2. Last year, the Worlds final drew more than 6.4 million in peak viewership, the largest-ever peak audience for an esports event – and that’s without counting Chinese streaming platforms. The PlayStation State of Play event revealed a slew of upcoming titles for the console-maker. Among them are some heavy hitters, including Ghost of Yotei – a sequel to Ghost of Tsushima – a remastered version of Horizon Zero Dawn, an expansion for the massively popular Astro Bot and plenty more. Oh, and Keanu Reeves made an appearance to promote his voicing Shadow in an upcoming DLC for Sonic x Shadow Generations. It was a good time. Frostpunk 2 covered its costs for producing and marketing the game just five days after launch, publisher 11 BitStudios announced. With 350,000 copies sold after its Sept. 20 release, the city builder with a post-apocalyptic twist comes more than six years after the original Frostpunk, which sold 5 million units as of April 2024. The success is another signal that indie studios and non-AAA budgets have significant opportunities in the games space as it stands now, especially when their content is worth playing. Concord’s game director has stepped down following the title’s shutdown, and staff at developer Firewalk Studios are worried another shoe will drop soon, according to a report from Kotaku. Concord marks an unprecedented failure for publisher Sony: The game was pulled from shelves weeks after release, following eight years of development and reportedly hundreds of millions in development budget spent. |
 SPONSORSHIP & ACTIVATIONAround 54% of consumers’ free time is spent on entertainment and gaming, according to a study by Fandom. The company’s Inside Fandom study also highlighted the genre as the most-mentioned pastime of respondents at 80%, with more than a quarter of consumers ranking it as their No. 1 passion point. Fandom hosted a webinar hosted by actress Deborah Ann Woll to break down the study and how brands can take advantage of audiences’ engagement with these “leaned in moments.” "This study shows that gaming, movie and TV content gives consumers much more than just entertainment – it represents their values and connects them to communities,” Fandom CEO Perkins Miller said in a statement. "Fans celebrate these imagined worlds across platforms because they seek connection and want to celebrate their experiences. Brands who can speak to fan communities with authentic messages will magnify their reach and impact.” Riot Games leaned into alternative rock group Linkin Park’s comeback for this year’s League of Legends World Championship anthem. The band created “Heavy is the Crown,” the latest Worlds track, as it continues to reassert itself in the music industry following their announcement of a return to performing earlier this month. Ninjas in Pyjamas Group is diving into game publishing, the company announced. NIP, known for its esports efforts, will focus on titles that are core to its identity as a competitive organization for more than two decades. “This move is a natural extension of our vision to deliver a comprehensive and immersive entertainment experience,” said Mario Ho, Chairman and Co-CEO of NIP Group. “We are confident that this new venture will bring significant success and growth to our company.” Nerd Street Gamers finished a $6 million funding roundon Monday as the company continues to level out its business. Gaming VC firm Konvoy Ventures led the round with $5 million in investment, which Nerd Street said it will use to pursue the growth of its brick-and-mortar esports venue initiatives in the U.S. The news caps off a tumultuous few years for Nerd Street, which at one point was unable to pay competitors in its tournaments and was seeking acquisition partners. “There’s no sugar coating it, we went through a brutal two years in survival mode to get here,” Nerd Street founder and CEO John Fazio said in a statement. ““We couldn’t have asked for a better partner in Konvoy given their experience, network, and most importantly their passion for the industry. Together, we’re going to build something that amplifies the entire industry.” |
| Cynopsis Gaming Tempest Awards Things are about to get real spooky… Fall has arrived, and with it, the thrilling vibes of spooky season! But fear not—this is no trick! Treat yourself to a complimentary pass for the Tempest Awards Virtual Ceremony on October 29th, 2024, from 1-3 PM ET. Join industry giants like MasterCard, Progressive, AT&T, and many more as we celebrate the best in gaming. SECURE MY SPOT |
| STREAM HATCHET INSIGHTS  Live Service Games are on the rise on Live Streaming Live service games originated from early 2000s MMOs like World of Warcraft, where players paid subscriptions and bought expansion packs for new content. As consoles evolved, downloadable content (DLC) and games like Borderlands began blending genres, foreshadowing the live service model. Valve’s 2010 announcement of games as a service led to the launch of GTA Online and Warframe in 2013, and later, Fortnite and PUBG in 2017, cementing the model's dominance. A Stream Hatchet analysis from 2018 to 2024 shows that live service game viewership on streaming platforms doubled, with Dota 2, Counter-Strike, and Fortnite seeing significant growth. The rise in viewership was steady, with an additional boost during COVID-19 due to the social, cooperative nature of these games. Live service games have largely replaced traditional "boxed" games, with only 16% of the top 100 games in June 2024 being boxed titles like Elden Ring and Baldur’s Gate 3. In contrast, live service games released after 2018 made up 41% of the top 100. Their constant updates, effective marketing, and Twitch Drops campaigns make live service games more appealing for both players and viewers on streaming platforms. Read the full article on Stream Hatchet's Blog |
 How ROKiT Racing Star melded esports and racing into a powerful docu-seriesStreaming platform ROKiT Flix recently released esports docu-series ROKiT Racing Star, which highlights the journeys of teenage sim-drivers in the UK competing for a spot in the IRL ROKiT British F4 Championship. The six-part series serves as another example of the value of not just gaming IP but game-related storytelling to entertainment companies. Jonathan Kendrick, the executive Producer and co-creator of ROKiT Racing Star and ROKiT Industries Chairman, took some of our questions on the project, the next edition of the ROKiT docu-series, and what the ROKiT team learned from working with the young sim-racers that form the crux of their story. Cynopsis: We’ve seen quite a bit of crossover between traditional entertainment and gaming, and your series brings up an interesting question: What role does esports play in the reshaping of TV and film? Kendrick: Our team at ROKiT Studios is comprised of not only remarkably talented storytellers, producers, artists, and other creatives, but we are also fans, tech nerds, and individuals who want to create content that we also want to consume. As it pertains to esports, there’s no question that when audiences fall hard for a particular IP, they want more opportunity to interact with a given character or world. I think that’s true across many demographics, and it’s giving storytellers an incredible opportunity to innovate new ways for fans to further immerse themselves in a show or film, etc. Esports broke the mold when it comes to entertainment that champions both active and passive participation, and opening the door to a die-hard community of fans. With the prestige and recognition of esports continually on the rise, and nearly every studio having some skin in the game, the TV and film landscape is only going to benefit from access to stories and universes with built-in legions of loyal fans hoping for the chance to see their favorite games come to life. What did you learn from not just filming this series but experiencing the journey the athletes went on? ROKiT Racing Star was truly a labor of love, and having the opportunity to bring it to the small screen with my dear friend and co-creator Bob Fernley, who was the head of the FIA Single-Seater Commission and a recognisable character from Formula 1, before he passed is bittersweet. As great fans of the motorsports space ourselves, we were so inspired by the tremendous talent and grit these young sim-drivers possess. And so we found ourselves in a unique position to remove the typical financial barriers to motorsport, and provide young, promising sim-drivers the chance to compete in top-echelon, real-world motorsport in fully-funded seats. It was a way of giving back to the sport, but more importantly it was an extension of ROKiT’s DNA of elevating opportunities, education, entertainment and more for today’s youth. I think the greatest takeaway from this series for us was how the discipline and sportsmanship these 14-16 year old aspiring sim-drivers exhibited made it clear that this is more than just about motorsports, it’s about young adults literally putting themselves in the driver seat and making their dreams a reality. What feedback have you gotten on the project? The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, and I think so much of that comes from the emotional investment our team put into this project. Prior to ROKiT Racing Star, sim-driving had yet to be explored on a mainstream platform, and we saw the potential in unveiling and celebrating this previously unexplored space. Not to mention, priming the drivers for the opportunity to go from sim to circuit, in REAL cars. Much like other leading competition series, from American Idol to Top Chef, ROKiT Racing Star is an avenue to celebrate up-and-coming drivers without the pressures of huge submission fees and associated training costs, which is something participants and fans really responded to. Also, viewers of the show and of the motorsports world really fell in love with our season 1 champion, Deagan Fairclough whose dedication and heart were both relatable and really moving. The most telling feedback we received was countless inquiries about when the next season and inevitably the next opportunity to enter and hopefully compete would be, which is a great testament to viewers’ excitement about the show. You have a global version of this series coming in the future. What can we expect from that? ROKiT Flix is available across the globe, which made it a no-brainer to open up the next round of competition to a worldwide pool of sim-driving talent. Additionally, getting into motorsport can be very challenging from a socio-economic perspective, so we feel extremely privileged to offer aspiring sim-drivers from all walks of life an opportunity to literally get into the driver’s seat and truly democratize the experience of competitive racing. The fact that our own Deagan Fairclough has become the most successful race winner in Formula 4 history, is proof that there is massive potential to uncover. The number one thing I believe will surprise viewers is the sheer size of the motorsport and sim-driving community, and how diverse the next season of the series will be. Our next season will showcase five promising sim-drivers, and we imagine the selection process – with so many interested and talented young people – being the most challenging part. We’re thrilled at the level of interest in participating on future seasons of the series, and the opportunity to find the world’s next ROKiT Racing Star. |
 INDUSTRYMedia conglomerate Gamurs Group has gone through another round of cuts, with impacted employees spanning some of its biggest verticals including Dot Esports, Destructoid and others. The most recent cuts are at least the third for Gamurs this year as the company continues to languish; Google’s algorithm adjustments and its addition of AI summaries have crippled Gamurs’ SEO-focused programmatic revenue approach, and given the lack of adjustments over the past year and a half, it appears the company and CEO Riad Chikhani don’t have a backup plan. A difficult year for Intel was given more context this month, as Reuters revealed the chipmaker lost its contract to produce Sony’s PlayStation 6 chips to AMD in 2022. The deal, according to Reuters, would have been worth $30 billion in revenue. Intel earlier this year announced it will lay off around 15,000 people as part of a $10 billion cost-cutting measure to stabilize the company, and the company recently received acquisition offers from both investment firm Apollo Global Management and competitor Qualcomm, according to Bloomberg. Former Tapjoy CEO Jeff Drobick has joined web3 game platform Earn Alliance as its COO, the company announced. Drobick, whose work with Tapjoy made a notable mark on the mobile games space, will now try to make an impact for the web3 game aggregator and “introduce Earn Alliance’s capabilities and scale the business” to the broader games industry. Nintendo is suing the makers of Palworldfor patent infringement. The lawsuit is likely months in the making since the January release of Palworld, which reeled in millions of players but also sparked some questions of whether Nintendo or The Pokemon Company would take action against publisher Pocketpair for the use of assets and monsters that looked similar to those used in the Pokemon franchises. “In order to protect the valuable intellectual property that we have built up through many years of hard work, we will continue to take the necessary measures against any infringement of our intellectual property, including our brand,” Nintendo said in a statement. |
| Cynopsis BIG TV Summit: New Strategies to Reach Target Audiences Missed it? No Worries! We know how hectic life can get—plans change and schedules fill up! If you couldn’t attend the Cynopsis BIG TV Summit on September 18th, don’t worry—we’ve got your back! Our on-demand videos will be available in the coming days, so you can catch up on everything you missed, from local insights to the latest on linear vs. streaming, retail media, and much more. Purchase video on-demand today and have access to all the insights shared onsite. You’ll get an email when it’s available to view! PURCHASE VOD |
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| TRIVIA What is the name of the broader franchise that Space Marine 2 is part of?(Email lleahey@accessintel.com with your answer, and be sure to include your name, company and city). Answer to Our Last Trivia Question When did the original Backyard Sports title, Backyard Baseball, release? Answer: 1997. |
Cynopsis Team
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