Evening digest: SuperData reported for July, 2K Games removes loot boxes, For Honor records
Business news (and not only) of the gaming industry for August 23.
Finance
The turnover of the gaming industry in July amounted to $8.2 billion
July showed a drop. If in June of this year, players spent $9.1 billion on digital games, then spending in July turned out to be almost a billion less. At the same time, the market showed an annual growth of 3%.
And, by the way, August may not be anywhere near hot either. The fact is that the main driver of market growth — Fortnite — showed very low growth rates in July, despite the release of the fifth season of combat passes (by 2%).
From the funny: No Man’s Sky showed the best sales results since the release. The release of a major update and launch on Xbox One allowed the game to collect $ 24 million.
Laws
2K Games removes Loot boxes in NBA Simulator 2K18
The American publisher had to go to extreme measures. Due to the new legislation of Belgium and the Netherlands, the company is forced to change the monetization of the NBA 2K18 basketball simulator.
In the Belgian version of the 2K Games game, the ability to buy boosters with basketball players with real money will be blocked. In the Dutch version of the project, access to the auction is blocked.
Recall that after the scandal with Star Wars Battlefront II, it was the governments of these countries that took the toughest policy towards loot boxes and game monetization.
ResultsThe free distribution of For Honor has significantly increased online games
Ubisoft is trying to promote a smoldering ember For Honor. Sales of the MMO fencing game have been going badly since its launch in 2017. Despite the fact that it was warmly received by the press, the game did not gain stable popularity.
At the start of sales, For Honor, which was sold at full price, could boast of 30 thousand online, but only in the debut period. After a couple of months, the number of users in the game at the same time decreased to 1.5 thousand.
This year, before the release of the paid add-on, Ubisoft decided to increase the installation base of the project. To do this, the company arranged a free weekend of the project on Steam in May, which doubled the user base.
Yesterday, the company took another more radical step. She made the game on Steam temporarily-free to download. This allowed For Honor to reach the peak online for all time. The game has crossed the mark of 210 thousand people playing it at the same time.
Published publications
The following materials have also been published on our pages today:
- The creator of Spelunky spoke about the pitfalls for novice indie developers
- Video: Wargaming.Net about innovations in games
- NPD: Octopath Traveler is the highest—grossing game of July in the USA
- Pochta Bank will invest more than 10 million rubles in esports and open a website for gamers
- The creator of Super Mario advised gaming companies to moderate their appetite
