Welcome back to another roundup of MMO and MMO-adjacent industry news.
GDC’s State of the Industry: GDC’s annual survey of game developers offers an array of interesting stats this week. The survey of over 3000 developers and industry professionals showed that nearly half had seen game delays from the pandemic, PC is still the most popular platform, and almost everyone thinks the 30/70 revenue split on digital storefronts is bad.
Epic v. Apple: It’s the lawsuit that keeps on giving! Depositions relating to the ongoing suit between the tech giants have actually revealed some interesting tidbits for games-watchers, as apparently Fortnite on iOS isn’t actually a large chunk of Epic’s revenue. From 2018 to 2020, PlayStation 4 turns out to generate almost half of the game’s incomes, followed by Xbox One with over a quarter, followed by PC and Switch. iOS accounted for merely 7% of the game’s fortunes, with Epic projecting that to fall to under 6% on the platform by the end of last year.
Nexon: The Korean MMO giant announced this week that it’s purchased $100 million US in bitcoins, representing “less than 2% of Nexon’s total cash and cash equivalents on hand.” Yikes. “In the current economic environment, we believe bitcoin offers long-term stability and liquidity while maintaining the value of our cash for future investments,” Nexon’s CEO said.
Azerion: Habbo Hotel’s parent company, which bought up Habbo’s Sulake just at the beginning of this year, has raised $242M US to help it buy up even more stuff. Azerion says it aims to “finance multiple acquisitions across its platform” including profitable gaming content.
