Google has made its move on gaming with the announcement of streaming platform Stadia.  The news came on the second day of the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco; and it surely stands as one of the most significant gaming reveals in the industry’s history. Such a major player moving in with such an ambitious platform could radically impact the broad ecosystem of the industry, the makeup of audiences playing games, and the way the medium is consumed and designed. However, Stadia’s [...]

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You don’t need to be a devoted games industry observer to have noticed something of the recent rise of eSports. Organised competitive gaming has been around along time, of course. eSports’ nascent form was forged in the earliest arcade gaming tournaments in the 1970s, where players competed to win a patch declaring their prowess; presumably to be sewn onto an oversized distressed denim jacket. By the 1990s the notion of a ‘pro-gamer’ making money from prize winnings was established, but even then [...]

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ExchangeWire rounds up some of the biggest stories in the European digital advertising space. In this week’s edition: Prebid by OpenX Now Generally Available; Adjust Expands to India; Further Expansion for adsquare in U.S.; Triton Digital Integrates with Tru Optik; and U.S.: 75% of Brands Buy Ads Programmatically. Prebid by OpenX Now Generally Available OpenX has just announced the general availability its pre-bid video header bidding solution, providing another monetisation option to publishers. Prebid offers direct access to OpenX’s video exchange within [...]

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Fortnite is the break-out gaming success of the year. It has currently got 45 million users playing the game (across platforms) and has a run rate of around USD$3bn (£2.3bn) per year. The game has barely touched the sides in terms of growth; and with its Android launch next month, a huge spike in user growth is expected. The freemium gaming model perfected Fortnite’s success has been built on a freemium model. Its ‘Battle Royale’ version is free-to-play across all platforms. Players [...]

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