Fallout favorite
Amazon's new TV show boosts Microsoft's player count
The SuperJoost Playlist is a weekly take on gaming, tech, and entertainment by business professor and author, Joost van Dreunen.
My next destination is Old Amsterdam.
The city; not the cheese.
Having lived the last two decades in New York, previously known as New Amsterdam, I've come to appreciate my place of origin over the years. Much of it remains the same: the weather is still generally miserable, major soccer teams like Ajax continue to disappoint, and Dutch politics are currently at a standstill as the country grapples with an unprecedented post-war polarization of interests. It offers a familiar experience that often sits opposite my daily life.
Considering how irrationally defiant the Dutch tend to be, traveling there presents a specific risk profile. For example, despite it being illegal, the use of smartphones while participating in traffic has increased. In 2023, 75 percent of adult drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians admit to using their phones in traffic, up from 66 percent in 2017. Sending and reading text messages are two obvious favorites. Notably, one in ten Dutch people plays mobile games while driving (11 percent), up from 3 percent in 2017.
Is it surprising then that traffic fatalities among bicyclists are now the most common? In 2023, 270 people died while riding a bike compared to 194 drivers.
In the US, where cars continue to ignore bicycles, it took me years to get comfortable riding. And so when I did start, I wore a helmet, which made me safer but also the target of ridicule among my Dutch family and friends.
But after years of being made fun of, the Dutch have gotten wiser and are now promoting helmets. Imagine that. Now boarding for New New Amsterdam.
On to this week’s update.
NEWS
Fallout TV series starts with a bang
Amazon Prime released the first season of the TV series based on the retro-futuristic video game franchise Fallout.
The release presents another data point toward the transition of games as a platform. As we’ve seen before, adding a televised show or feature film expands and reinforces the narrative economy of a video game. Increasingly, developers look to take the experience beyond just play and are deploying a broader range of activities and entry points for audiences.
The initial numbers back it up. Several titles in the series saw a jump in their player count: the maximum number of daily concurrent players for Fallout GOTY Edition was up 4.8x from a month earlier. Player activity across the five most popular titles in the series increased 3.3x to 160,584.
Added tension here is the observation that Microsoft owns the Fallout franchise since acquiring ZeniMax Media in 2020 and directly competes with the series’ producer, Amazon. I’ll be looking for the fallout when that hits.
[BTW, the first Fallout game from 1997 was the best. I will not be taking any questions at this time.]
Video game venture funding back online
Following a dire few quarters during which more than a few funds burned their fingers, dedicated investors are showing themselves. Over the past two weeks, two notable contenders announced new monies: (1) BITKRAFT Ventures announced its third fund at $275 million focused on the intersection between digital and physical, and (2) a16z announced its second fund to the tune of $600 million as part of a $7.2 billion raise.
Investment activity seemingly bottomed out in late 2023 and the first quarter of 2024 suggests a turnaround. According to CB Insights, gaming VCs deployed $594 million, which is the first sign of a return to pre-COVID investment activity. During the pandemic, interactive entertainment was awash in cash, totaling $10.0 billion in 2021, which resulted in the overvaluation of the sector and the subsequent wave of layoffs.
At this year’s GDC I picked up a sense that venture funding is indeed on its return, with both VCs and strategic investors actively looking for deals. However, aspiring startups will have to overcome a notably higher degree of scrutiny. Due diligence will be more rigorous, and having worked at Riot or some other major publisher won’t be enough to raise.
Activision Blizzard updates Call of Duty League
After Blizzard made up with NetEase last week and turned the lights back on in China, today the Call of Duty League announced an overhaul.
According to its General Manager, Daniel Tsay, the league is eliminating entry fees, refunding previously collected fees, increasing revenue sharing from in-game merchandise sales, and providing higher event subsidies to support teams' financial success. Additionally, the league is offering a two-year minimum revenue guarantee to provide stability and encourage long-term investment.
Rumors of the changes had previously emerged in late February via Bloomberg, and now seem to have materialized.
Now that Microsoft has taken the reigns, we’re starting to see changes across the entire Activision Blizzard organization. It looks like it’s for the better. Competitive gaming continues to be a critical component of successful franchises, including ensuring a healthy ecosystem for its professional players. Along with the commercial success of the game itself, the Call of Duty League saw
“the highest viewership in [its] history and record-breaking attendance at [its] in-person events.”
The esports category has lost a lot of momentum and despite consolidation to capture audiences at scale continues to struggle to generate revenue. A more fair distribution of revenue streams serves as a potential equalizer between publishers and professional players.
PLAY/PASS
Pass. At the end of the Beijing Half Marathon, three African runners seemingly slowed down right before the finish line to let a Chinese runner, He Jie, take the win.
Play. ROMchip, a journal of game histories edited by my podcast co-host, Laine Nooney, is fundraising. Go help out!
NEXT UP
Jonathan Haidt, a colleague at NYU Stern, published his latest book titled The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness. It paints a gloomy picture of social media, video games, and pornography all contributing to the demonstrable prevalence of depression among young people. Look for next week’s write-up where I lay out where Haidt is right, comes up short, and plain wrong, even as he challenges how to think about working in gaming.