1、European Commission fines Valve and five other publishers €7.8m for geo-blocking Steam games
"Geo-blocking " is one of the main means for game publishers to distinguish between markets with different level of purchasing power. After a long investigation, the European Commission recently issued a fine on Valve and five other publishers€7.8 million (about 61.0568 million yuan). European Commission found that these companies restricted cross-border sales of certain PC games on the basis of the geographical location of users within the European Economic Area (EEA). Such manipulations were ruled as violating EU antitrust rules.
Valve has issued with a statement disputing the European Commission's claims and vowing to appeal. Valve said that during the seven-year investigation, Valve cooperated extensively with the European Commission and provided evidence and information as requested. Valve disagrees with the EC findings and the fine levied against Valve.
2、CDPR suffered another class action lawsuit by U.S. investors on the quality of Cyberpunk 2077
Recently, CDPR has formally responded to the second class action lawsuit filed by investors on the quality of Cyberpunk 2077 after its releasing. In the second class action, the investors claimed that the quality of Cyberpunk 2077 misled, thus caused them to suffer losses and violating of federal laws. The content of the claim, including its subject and scope, is the same as the class action lawsuit in December 2020. The complaint does not specify the quantity of damages sought. CDPR said the second class action lawsuit had been filed in the District Court for the Central District of California. In response to the complaint, CDPR will undertake vigorous action to defend itself against any such claims.
3、GameStop’s stock price soared up by 92.7%
GameStop (NYSE: GME), the world's largest physical game retailer, rose by 92.7% to close at US $147.98 in stock price on January 26 local time, up 41%[xss_clean_space]after hours. On the same day, "Silicon Valley Iron Man" Elon Musk tweeted the discussion of WallStreetBets, the investment division of reddit forum, and commented that "Gamestonk!".
From January 2, the first trading day of this year, to the close of January 26, the stock price of GameStop rose by 685.46%. During this period, GameStop updated its board of directors and appointed three new directors to promote the company's focus on core business and accelerate its development. It also disclosed the sales data of the 2020 holiday season. GameStop announced that up to January 2, 2021, due to the decrease in the number of stores caused by COVID-19, the overall sales revenue fell by 3.1% compared with that in 2019, but the e-commerce channel had a greater growth.
4、Activision’s new patent indicates its endeavor to increase the combination of real world and games
Recently, an interesting patent from Activision shows that the company is trying to combine reality with games. In the patent for "reality based video game elements" applied by Activision, the company attempts to combine real-world goods with game experience. However, the main combination applies to vehicles. The patent describes that vehicles in the real world will receive commands from the video game controller, record videos of their surroundings, and integrate these video images into the game. Different types of sensors, such as infrared ray, radar, lidar and GPS may be used on one vehicle to identify the environment. This may also be related to another GPS / AR patent of Activision.
5、Investment in the game industry has reached US $33.6 billion in 2020, of which China accounted for 27%
In 2020, the total investment in the game industry has reached 664 transactions, with a total value of US $33.6 billion. In its annual report, InvestGame stressed that last year, the United States dominated the investment field, accounting for 36% of the total transaction value, followed by China, accounting for 27%.
According to statistics, the transaction volume of investment and M&A in the game industry has reached US $12.6 billion, mainly from Tencent (23 M&A transactions), Embracer Group (26 transactions), Stillfront (6 transactions) and Zynga (3 transactions).
The biggest acquisition in 2020 is Microsoft's acquisition of Bethesda's parent company, with a total amount of US $7.5 billion. In addition, Zynga acquired Peak Games for US $1.8 billion, Tencent acquired Leyou for us $1.3 billion, and EA agreed to acquire Codemasters for US $1.2 billion.
6、Bilibili E-sports made the first round financing of 180 million Chinese Yuan
On January 14, it was reported that Bilibili E-sports had completed the first round financing of 180 million Chinese Yuan. This investment is led by Zhejiang Chuangxiang Culture Fund, followed by Tianfuwenchuang and B-raymedia. Bilibili E-sports was officially established in October 2018. It is worth noting that this is the first time that Bilibili E-sports has conducted financing in the open market. With the successful completion of this round of financing, Bilibili E-sports said that it will continue to give play to the advantages of its business system to launch and operate more popular IP content for the young generation.
