GM! It's Sunday. Time for some reflection and reading.

Check out our W30 of In The Loop w/ kapital_k

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Here's what you missed this week.
- A report on USA Game Ad Revenue hitting $130B in 2025.
- Netflix's preferred method of working with external dev studios.
- A look at the resurgence of casual games
- CoD Mobile raking in $3B lifetime revenue.
- Some tips about recruitment from a studio perspective.

These are some threads, blogs, and pods that I want to shoutout:
- Threads — Javier's Metaverse Landscape
- Blogs — thecoreloop's Beyond Traditional Advertising
- Blogs — Lightspeed Venture's Gaming x AI Market Map + new website
- Pods — Deconstructor of Fun's TWiG#242 Talking about Eggy Party

There were over $73M raised this week — $66M came from a new gaming fund called Valhalla Ventures

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Read more here

Look at Gaming #263 | Monday July 31st 2023

GM. Welcome to Week 31 of the year — time is flyin' by.

Fun fact to start your week. 2 out of 3 people in China plays video games. 🧐

A report from the China Audio-Video And Digital Publishing Association (CADPA) stated that China's gamer base hit a new ATH with 668M players — that's 2x the population of the USA. But revenue of $20B in H1 2023 is 2% lower YoY. A full report is scheduled to be released after the ChinaJoy conference.

I went over to AppMagic to see what the mobile game market structure looks like and unsurprisingly Tencent and NetEase dominated. Out of the Top 10 Mobile Game Publishers, Tencent and NetEase comprise of 80% of the revenues and
92% of the downloads so far in 2023.

Shoutout to miHoYo Games for being the third largest publisher in China with less than 2% of the quantity of mobile apps that Tencent and NetEase has.

You can check out my AppMagic data dashboard here
(Drop a comment if you want a trial code to App Magic)

Read more about the article in the Spotlight section below!

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🔦 Spotlight 🌟
China’s gaming reportedly hit a record gamer base in the first half of 2023 | PGBiz


🌊 MARKET ☎️
Apptica: Mobile gaming market in H1 2023 | GameDevReports

Twitch viewership sees a 3% dip in June | GamesIndustry.biz

China’s gaming reportedly hit a record gamer base in the first half of 2023 | PGBiz

Blizzard's billion dollar quarter. Gang gang, data so good. And a teardown of the industry essential facts | Unboxing Podcast


💎 Deep Dives 🔎
Snapchat's Future in AR | Konvoy Ventures

Under the hood: Deconstructing Monopoly GO! | PGBiz

Re-release: Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart Creative Director, Marcus Smith | The AIAS Game Maker Notebook


🌈 Platforms 🏔
Xbox's Phil Spencer reveals new Final Fantasy partnership | GamesIndustry.biz

EA reshuffles studio leadership after Samantha Ryan departs | GamesIndustry.biz

HaZimation launches Moontopia, a sci-fi shooter on Fortnite built by filmmakers | VentureBeat


✨ Web 3️⃣ + Meta 🌎
Solana Wants to Lead the Crypto Gaming Charge—Here's How | Decrypt


🧠 Knowledge Hub 📚
Influencer Marketing 101 | Naavik


👾 Game & Stats Releases 🎮
Lara Croft, Nicki Minaj, Snoop Dogg, And 21 Savage Are Joining Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare II And Warzone | GameInformer

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gg! Say it back!

GM, hope you're having a good weekend. I rummaged through my earliest gaming memories to share with you how far gaming has come from my perspective. I also discuss where I think we're heading.

Super Apps Part II: The Gaming Revolution - Redefining Interactive Entertainment
This is an excerpt from the essay:

A crisp click of the ‘power’ button. A low humming of electricity. The screen lights up with two letters in full vibrant colors of fire red, sunflower yellow, and teal blue. The voice whispers: PlayStation.

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Summary Bullet Points:
• Analyzing the attributes of a pre-super app
• Examining the gaming stack as it is today
• Showcasing examples like Steam, miHoYo's Hoyoverse, and Twitch to illustrate the power of becoming a platform
• Highlighting the importance of authenticity within the gaming community

Read your weekly digest for In The Loop w/ Kapital K

In Week 31 of 2023, China's gaming market achieved a record high gamer base in the first half of the year, while SypherPK's Rocket Wars UEFN island gained popularity and Amazon introduced a tool for in-app purchases.

Additionally, Apple continued its emphasis on privacy with the introduction of App Tracking Transparency (ATT), but the US gaming market still shows strong potential for growth.

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🧵Threads
• Andrew Chen's quick thread on gaming history and Aiko (Folius) talking about China Joy

📝 Blogs
• Great blogs on AR by Konvoy Ventures and Deconstructor's breadown of the App Store's NFT Guidelines.

🎙Pods
• Pods on TIm Sweeney (Epic Founder) diabolical plan and a chat about Metaverse Security.

🧧 Raises
• $264M "raised". $89M came from Playtika acquiring Azerion and $75M from a16z funding its incubator. $50M from a new fund GEM Capital and $50M for Inworld (AI NPCs)
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That's it for Week 31! I can't believe we're in Week 31.

Look at Gaming #268 | Monday August 7th 2023

GM! It's Monday.

I'm kicking the week off with a look at Nintendo's mobile game efforts. Since 2016, they've earned $1.5B across six games — but two were cancelled.

There's a clear graph in the article showing Nintendo's monthly earnings and it peaked in about November 2019 (at $40M) and has been in steady decline down to $8M in July 2023.

The top three Nintendo games make up lion share of their mobile revenue. Fire Emblem Heroes pulled in $810M from 13.3M downloads. Mario Kart Tour rakes in $243M with 230M downloads. Animal Crossing is slightly under at $240M and 60M downloads.

The other mobile games aren't updated regularly and it's obvious since it's unprofitable. Super Mario Run only makes $250k per month.

But earlier this year Nintendo announced that it's partnering up with DeNA which is a mobile publisher powerhouse with over 197 games of which 10 games pulled in more than $50M in lifetime revenue. And DeNA's monetization is next level — $18 per download.

Read more about it in the Spotlight section.

Check out my AppMagic dashboard of Nintendo's mobile efforts here

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🔦 Spotlight 🌟
• After earning $1.5bn from mobile games, is Nintendo about to give up on them? | MobileGamer.biz


🌊 MARKET ☎️
• Final Fantasy XVI fell short of Square Enix's high-end expectations | GameDeveloper

• Konami holds steady in Q1 despite game sales decreasing | GamesIndustry.biz

• After earning $1.5bn from mobile games, is Nintendo about to give up on them? | MobileGamer.biz


💎 Deep Dives 🔎
• The Future of Avatars | Naavik

• Forever Apps | Konvoy Ventures


🧠 Knowledge Hub 📚
• Taylor Lorenz on the Difficulty of Online Harassment | Jacob Wolf Report


💰 Fundraising 🧧
• Zibra AI raises $500,000 from a16z Speedrun | PocketGamer.biz


👾 Game & Stats Releases 🎮
• Nexon’s The First Descendant 3rd-person shooter hits beta September 19-25 | GamesBeat

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Drop a gg!

Shoutout to PaladinsDAO for completing their Paladins Auction!! Now there's 100 Paladins out there about to change the face of web3 gaming.

Look at Gaming #269 | Tuesday August 8th 2023

GM! It's Tuesday.

A little light on the news today. Except that Valve just sent a notice to DotA 2 Custom Game creators to halt all monetization.

DotA 2 Custom Games are essentially game mods which was also how Dota itself got started. The most popular game is called Overthrow which is effectively the Team Death Match equivalent in CoD — high adrenaline and action packed. Another good one is 10v10 Dota2. As the name suggests, it's just the standard play mode but 2x the heroes 2x the fun. But these are created by Valve, not the community.

DotA Auto Chess is a game that originated from the community and pleasantly surprised the whole industry. This game mode was awesome. Then obvious Valve does what Valve do and created a clone called DotA Underlords. So Valve's move to stop all monetization would definitely hinder modding innovations.

This is important to note because many platforms are heading towards this UGC-platform route — think UEFN (Fortnite Islands), Fall Guys, Halo, Destiny. So all creators need to be cognizant of the terms and conditions of the platform they're building on.

You can read more about it in Spotlight

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🔦 Spotlight 🌟
• Valve asks Dota 2 players to stop monetizing their custom games | GameDeveloper


🌊 MARKET ☎️
• Newzoo: Global games market expected to increase 2.6% in 2023 | GamesIndustry.biz

• Paid subscriptions redeem Apple’s Q3 after hardware sales fall | PGBiz


💎 Deep Dives 🔎
• Co-Development: An Inside Look with Tim Bennison, COO of Hot Head Games | Deconstructor of Fun


🌈 Platforms 🏔
• Sony is now streaming PS5 games at 4K over the internet in public beta | The Verge

• Valve asks Dota 2 players to stop monetizing their custom games | GameDeveloper

• Crucible launches Emergence SDK for Unity game developers to make interoperable avatars | GamesBeat


🧠 Knowledge Hub 📚
• In-depth: a discovery 'playbook' for Steam & console games | GameDiscoverCo


💰 Fundraising 🧧
• Studio Billion receives undisclosed investment in pre-series A bridge round | PGBiz

• Windup Minds raises $1.6M to build virtual pets in VR and MR | GamesBeat


👾 Game & Stats Releases 🎮
• Nekki celebrates 20 years of mobile gaming innovation after surpassing one billion installs | PGBiz

• Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare III Arrives November 10 | GameInformer

• Fortnite’s new Jujutsu Kaisen anime collab adds themed outfits and quests | The Verge

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Drop a gg

Your weekly digest is here.

Check out In The Loop w/ Kapital_K (Week 32 of 2023)

Top Headlines
• Netflix's bold(?) steps in the gaming realm 📺

• Valve's surprising request to Dota 2 players ☠️

• Epic Games vs. Apple: Legal saga continues 🍏

• Rockstar Taking Over GTA RP Servers 🔫

• Nintendo $1.5B succes in Mobile (or not) 🎈

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🧵Threads
• @0xAikoDai // China vs. Japan Perspective on Gacha — link

📝 Blogs
• Newzoo // Global Games Market Report — link

🎙Pods
• UNBOXING // Why Wall Street Doesn’t Love Roblox But Is Smitten With Take-Two — link

🧧 Raises
• $106MM in funding this week. Though there were two $50M raises for funds: Illuminati Capital and Born Ready

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Head over to our substack to read the full scoop.