Casual Gaming News: 09/07/20 – 09/13/20
We’re back again to break down the gaming news for this week. If you have any suggestions for news headlines we’ve missed, let us know in the comments!
First up on Casual Gaming News this week:
Epic Games Renews Legal Request to Bring Fortnite Back to Apple Store
Epic Games is still trying to get Apple to reinstate its Fortnite app on iOS devices. Late Friday, the gaming company filed a motion for a preliminary injunction against Apple’s blocking Fortnite on iPhones and iPad. More than 116 million gamers have played Fortnite on iOS, making it the game’s biggest platform. Fortnite has been blocked on iOS since August when Epic introduced a new way for players to buy in-game currency directly without paying Apple or Google their customary 30% cut of the revenue. This move violated both Apple and Google’s app store policies, the tech giants said, and Fortnite was pulled from both iOS and Android devices. Epic then sued both Apple and Google, accusing them of monopolistic practices.
It’s a frustrating time for Fortnite Mobile fans to say the least, as it’s becoming hard to watch this war between Apple and Epic get worse. Our thoughts are that Epic shouldn’t have tried to take Android and Apple out of the in-app purchases equation and Apple shouldn’t have removed Fortnite.
Read more at CNN Business here.
Influencers are Transforming the Gaming Industry, According to an Analysis by HypeFactory
Projections show that by 2023, there will be over three billion gamers worldwide, and the industry’s rapid growth shows no signs of slowing down. Close to 90% of all influencer marketing campaigns include Instagram as part of their strategy, but when it comes to gaming influencers, other platforms have proven to be more effective, according to leading influencer marketing agency HypeFactory.
Gaming commentary, reaction videos, and ‘Let’s Play’ videos, in which content creators play through a game progressively over a series of videos and react in real-time, routinely rack up hundreds of thousands, or even millions of views in certain cases. Gamers appreciate being able to see a game in action in video format, rather than simply looking at still images or screenshots on other platforms, such as Instagram.
It’s no surprise that HypeFactory came to this conclusion. We, here on The Casual App Gamer, absolutely love watching influencers reviewing games and playing games, it just feels so much better than looking at a few screenshots the developer posted. Influencers are the future in so many different aspects, but especially in the gaming industry!
Read more Cision PR Newswire here.
Video Games Market Value to Grow to $200bn by 2023, Despite Declining Purchase Revenue
A new report from Juniper Research finds that the video games industry will exceed $200 billion in value in 2023; growing from an expected $155 billion in 2020.
Mobile and cloud gaming will lead this growth, as the market shifts further towards recurring revenue, and purchase revenue declines by 5% over that period.
The news comes estimates by Buy Shares indicates that Epic Games could potentially lose an average of $26.7 million in monthly revenue after the App Store terminated the Epic Games account.
Of course, mobile and cloud gaming will lead to this growth. As we spend a lot of our time reviewing mobile casual games for you, we’ve discovered some absolute gems. So it’s no surprise that people are switching to mobile games rather than buying a console!
Read more Telemedia Online here.
Board Games are Starting to Look a lot like Video Games
Once upon a time, you had to nag a nearby nerd to play a board game like Dungeons & Dragons with you in person.
Now it’s as easy as asking someone from the game’s 2m+-member subreddit or its 1k+ Discord servers to stream the game with you online.
Last year, that ease of connectivity meant that D&D had its biggest sales year since its launch in 1974.
You thought Fortnite streams were popular?
Then look at board games. Even chess has become a livestreaming hit.
On Twitch, chess streaming has close to doubled every month this year — and everyone from The Mountain from Game of Thrones to pros like Hikaru Nakamura has amassed huge audiences.
Welcome to the digital board-game boom
Many of these games are played in person, then streamed out to a wider audience. But a bunch of startups is trying to make remote gameplay seamless:
- The Vorpal Board lets you scan your cards into a virtual board that you share with remote players.
- CardBoard.Live is trying to turn board games into a tournament-style experience that lets passive viewers snoop through each player’s card deck.
- The Last Gameboard calls itself an “unlimited” tabletop game: It’s a long, thin tablet that can adapt to any game you want.
It’s great to see board games adapting to our technology-focused society and creating games that even people who are used to video games will love. Have you tried any of the games mentioned?
Read more at The Hustle here.
Company of Heroes now Available for iOS and Android
Feral Interactive has released Company of Heroes for both iPhone and Android following its successful release on iPad.
Feral announced the release back in August. Company of Heroes was originally released on PC back in 2006, winning multiple awards as a real-time strategy game. Feral has adapted the game for touchscreens and successfully released the game on iPad earlier this year. From the developer: Company of Heroes offers players an epic WWII campaign, with gameplay comprised of intense squad-based battles that progress from the D-Day landings through to the liberation of Normandy. This version of the game allows mobile gamers to direct all the action from a user interface highly tailored to touch controls.
If you’ve been looking forward to Company of Heroes to be released on mobile, the time has finally come! This game looks awesome and we’re so excited to review it.
Read more at Android Central here.
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