Welcome back to a fresh roundup of MMO and MMO-adjacent business news!
Gamestonk: It’s starting to look as if last week’s wild GameStop stock squeeze is over, having severely wounded several hedge funds along the way. Though investors and Redditors had pushed the stock to a peak of $469 last week and it began yesterday over $300, as I type this it’s slid down to under $100 a share. CNBC called it a “plunge” and pointed to past quick-rise/quick-fall squeeze events, like the one in 2008 with Volkswagen. Wall Street Bets isn’t giving up, though, and it looks as if there are plenty of opportunists trying to turn the whole thing into TV shows and movies, so I’m afraid you’ll be hearing about it more in the future.
Microsoft and ZeniMax: One of 2020’s biggest surprises was the sale of ZeniMax Media to Microsoft. The acquisition continues, as this week Microsoft filed for approval in the EU. According to GIbiz, the decision will be finalized by EU regulators in early March.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons: Nintendo’s got another reason to cheer, as its incredibly well-timed 2020 game has now blasted past 31M copies sold, putting it just one notch away from being the best-selling Switch game ever.
Nexon and Com2uS: MMO Culture is reporting two interesting MMO business moves over in Korea this week. Nexon has apparently boosted salaries across the company, including for new hires, presumably in an effort to attract top (and keep) top talent. And Com2uS has purchased a majority stake in All-M, the company behind Kritika Online.
CCP Games: Did you know that CCP Games had games before EVE Online? Apparently, it made a board game called Hættuspilið way back in 1998, and it’s just released the “original Icelandic version” for collectors.
