The crowd still matters for live sports broadcasting

VIRTUALIZATION

Article | May 17, 2021

Ubisoft announced last week that it is adding specific focus on free-to-play, alongside its AAA catalogue. In doing so, it is following a route that has been very successful for Activision with its Warzone strategy. Free-to-play games which draw audiences via big franchise names and monetise via in-game spending are going to be increasingly common among AAA publishers. The focus on in-game spending and particularly on the cosmetic, rather than the progress-related, parts will be the key revenue component. As games become less finite and more perpetual (consumer goal is less about ‘finishing them’ and more and ‘playing/spending time in them’), the opportunity to monetise needs that stem from this perpetual engagement (e.g. socialising or expression) starts to outweigh the mere monetisation of access to a packaged product. Simultaneously, free-to-play games also act as a powerful marketing driver for AAA releases as they come out, as well as streamability and word of mouth for the franchise.

MEDIA AND BROADCASTING

Article | June 4, 2021

News that New York-based Pershing Square Tontine Holdings is planning to acquire 10% of UMGis the latest in a wave of financial transactions in the music rights space. Alongside this, Believe’s impending IPO has the potential to be one of the biggest things to happen to the independent music sector in some time, and comes as part of a wave of IPOs (e.g.WMG,UMG), SPACs (e.g.Anghami,Reservoir) and no end of catalogue funds and acquisition vehicles. This trend, with good cause, has been referred to as the ‘financialisation of music’ but that only captures part of what is at play here. This is more than simply an influx of capital and debt; financial institutions are now becoming part of the plumbing of the music business, and in turn they are changing the definition of what constitutes success. This shift in objectives and desired outcomes has the potential to rebalance how the music industry operates.

Article | April 17, 2020

As part of the deal, both the firms will work together to enhance the network capacities of each other while also supporting the expansion plans significantly. It will diversify the Microgaming’s product offerings such as slots, virtual sports, table games, etc. and will give a boost to the outreach plans of Inspired’s content. Inspired will offer 20 of its most innovative and widely played online slot games through Microgaming’s interface. The games offered will include Anubis Wild Megaways™, Prison Escape™, and Stacked Fire 7s™ along with the infusion of virtual and table games in the near future.

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Article | June 7, 2021

TikTok and Discord are essential channels for effective gamer targeting. MIDiA’s Q1 2021 survey states that weekly active user penetration of the two services over-indexes among mobile and console gamers the most of all tracked social media. This is similar with PC gamers, with the exception of Twitter ranking slightly higher than TikTok.