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The GamingEconomy Daily Digest brings you the prevailing business stories in gaming. In today’s news: Epic Games leads USD $ 15 million (£ 12 million) investment in Manticore; Digital Bros. Returns to Profit; and GameStop shares rally thanks to high investor ambitions.
Epic Games leads $ 15 million (£ 12 million) investment in Manticore
Epic Games has led a USD $ 15 million (£ 12 million) funding round on the user game creation system Manticore Games, as both companies strive to achieve a ‘metaverse’ of video games. The round was supported by venture capital firm Benchmark and entertainment firm Roc Nation. Manticore’s Core platform has been designed to democratize video game development and publishing, with user-created titles created since their alpha release last year now spanning genres including role-playing, MMO, fusion of three, and survival. To date, Manticore Games has raised USD $ 60 million (£ 47 million), with previous backers including BITKRAFT Ventures, Correlation Ventures, MaC Venture Capital and Tuesday Capital.
Commenting on the funding, Manticore Co-Founder and CEO Frederic Descamps wrote: “We are delighted with Epic’s support of the Manticore vision and the Core platform. We admire Epic’s leadership in empowering our industry through technology and feel very aligned with a vision of the future for a user-generated multiverse – we are leading a complete democratization of the landscape in how games are made and played, and even who does and plays. games. Core represents a drastic paradigm shift in user-generated gaming that resembles how YouTube or Twitch completely changed the expectations and economies for video and streaming; the difference is that Core users can already produce and play high-quality games in a connected multiverse. “
Digital Bros. returns to earnings
Publisher Digital Bros. has announced that it has returned to profitability during the 2019-2020 fiscal year, generating a net profit of 15 million euros (14 million pounds) from consolidated gross revenue of 139 million euros (128 million pounds). pounds), 71% more than the 81.3 euros. m (£ 74.6 million) recorded last year. The Milan-based firm’s premium gaming segment was responsible for 88% of this total revenue, mainly driven by the launches of Control (Remedy Entertainment) in August 2019 and Journey to the Savage Planet (Typhoon Studios) in January 2020, along with the launch. Bloodstained (ArtPlay) at the end of the previous accounting period. Revenue from free games also rose 13.7% to 7.48 million euros (6.87 million pounds) due to the strong performance of the Match-Three Gems of War title.
Executives at Digital Bros. are anticipating that revenue will continue to rise over the next financial year with the release of next-gen versions of Control, the PC version of Death Stranding, and new titles such as Ghostrunner, Portal Knights MMO, and Puzzle Quest 3. However, the group anticipates that the physical distribution will continue to decline as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. During 2019-2020, Digital Bros acquired the Starbreeze assets held by Smilegate Holdings for a total consideration of 19.2 million euros (17.6 million pounds), together with the remaining 51% of Ovosonico Srl for 210,000 euros ( 192,850 pounds).
GameStop shares rally amid high investor ambitions
Shares of GameStop Corp. (NYSE: GME) are up 20.69% at close of trading on Tuesday, September 22, to $ 10.56 (£ 8.26), their highest level since March last year. , in response to activist investor Ryan Cohen’s ambitions to transform retail gaming into a broader e-commerce company to compete with companies like Walmart and Amazon. According to initial reports from Bloomberg, Cohen’s RC Ventures has laid out its goals to expand the range of products and services offered by the retailer, including an expansion to digital services such as online exchanges and game streaming subscriptions. At the end of August, RC Ventures revealed that it had purchased a 5.7 million share stake in GameStop, which equates to a 9% stake, which in turn makes it the largest individual investor in the company. Previously, Cohen founded the Chewy pet supply company, which was sold to PetSmart Inc. in 2017 for $ 3 billion (£ 2.3 billion).
Confirmation of release dates for the next-gen Xbox and PlayStation consoles has also bolstered GameStop, which posted a loss of $ 111 million (£ 86.9 million) in the prior quarter as a result of the late cycle. console and the coronavirus pandemic. However, the recent acceleration of its e-commerce division, which grew 800% in terms of sales during the three months ended Aug. 1, 2020, will support Cohen’s vision for the Texas-based company.
