Frost Giant Studios, the independent game development studio founded by Blizzard veterans Tim Morten and Tim Campbell, has announced an advisory partnership with Dreamhaven. 

Dreamhaven, a new game company led by Mike and Amy Morhaime, was founded around a common goal to empower creators, help bring their ideas to life, and create original gaming experiences that foster meaningful connections between players. 

Frost Giant has also inked a licensing deal with Epic Games, creators of Unreal Engine 5 (UE5), the world’s most open and advanced real-time 3D creation platform, to serve as the studio’s game engine. 

The Dreamhaven team is composed of the original Blizzard RTS leadership team, who will offer applicable and valuable guidance as Frost Giant fulfills its strategy to lower the barrier to entry into RTS as well as significantly enhancing co-operative, campaign, and competitive gameplay. 

As part of the partnership agreement, the Dreamhaven team will provide consultation on product development, feedback in pre-production, and will also playtest the game.

Tim Morten, Frost Giant Studios CEO, commented: “We are so fortunate to be able to work with the industry giants at Dreamhaven who were instrumental in creating the RTS legacy that inspired Frost Giant. Mike Morhaime has helped set a benchmark for real-time strategy games that has not been surpassed. He remains engaged with the genre and the community today, and his advice will be incredibly valuable as we work to bring real-time strategy (RTS) games to a broad audience.”

Dreamhaven CEO, Mike Morhaime, noted: “The team at Frost Giant helped build some of the best RTS games of all time. I can’t wait to see what they will build next.”

AYO.NEWS says:

Mike isn’t the only one who can’t wait to see what Frost Giant comes up with. As previously reported, not only does the new studio boast an A-list roster of gaming talent, but it’s also secured the backing of BITKRAFT Ventures, 1 Up Ventures, GC Tracker, Riot Games, Griffin Gaming Partners, Kona Venture Partners, and Global Founders Capital, among others – so expectations are high. 

China-based esports organisation JingDong Gaming (JDG) has unveiled a rebrand at its fourth anniversary celebration in Shanghai. 

The organisation, which is owned by JD.com (Jingdong), China’s largest retailer, has a new team logo, brand logo, and an “official cheering gesture.” Apparently, the logo and gesture signify “no fear.” 

Additionally, JDG announced its intention to “collaborate with some comic IPs to create co-branded products,” and plans to create a League of Legends Pro League (LPL) home venue in the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area (BDA). The new venue will be located next to JD.com’s headquarters, and will also have office space and living quarters for JDG. 

JDG is one of the top teams in the LPL, having won the Spring Split Final in last year’s League of Legends World Championship. The organisation has no fewer than 15 commercial partnerships, including with major brands like SONY, Razer, Intel, Samsung, DouYou, and of course, Jingdong itself. 

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— JD Gaming (@JDGaming) May 23, 2021

Mercedes-AMG Petronas Esports Team has entered a new partnership with US-based semiconductor manufacturer AMD. 

The new deal, which builds upon an existing multi-year partnership between the Mercedes-owned Formula One team and the American multinational, will see the team’s esports division equipped with AMD products, including graphics cards, desktop processors, and other gaming hardware. 

Specifically, AMD is supplying AMD Radeon™ RX 6900 XT Graphics Cards, built upon the AMD RDNA 2 gaming architecture, AMD Ryzen™ 7 5800X Desktop Processors, powered by the “Zen 3” core architecture, and Radeon Software to enable the highest framerates and ultra-low-latency gameplay.

AMD will also be supplying gaming systems for the team’s soon to be revealed new training facility in Brackley, UK. 

John Taylor, Chief Marketing Officer at AMD, commented: “AMD is committed to pushing the boundaries of technology to provide the best possible gaming experiences. The Mercedes-AMG Petronas Esports Team share our passion for extreme gaming performance, and we are delighted to provide their professional drivers with the latest high-performance AMD Radeon and Ryzen technologies that deliver high framerates, low latency, and the smoothest gaming experiences when it matters most.”

James Vowles, Motorsport Strategy Director, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team, added: “In the world of competitive esports, milliseconds can define whether you win, or not, like on track. It is crucial to have the very best gaming platform providing the highest framerates, at the lowest latency, without compromising on reliability.

“The latest AMD-powered gaming platforms will form the foundations to fight for race wins in the virtual world, ensuring that every detail from the virtual world is fed back to our drivers as quickly as possible, and without compromise.”

AYO.NEWS says:

In the world of sim motorsports, performance is everything, so this is great news for the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Esports Team. Staying with F1 esports, yesterday Formula 1® announced that over 494k people attempted to qualify for this year’s 2021 F1® Esports Series – an increase of 108% from 2020.

UK-based esports organisation Fnatic has secured $17M USD in a funding round led by Japan’s Marubeni Corporation. 

Marubeni will also be supporting Fnatic’s expansion efforts in Japan and the Asia-Pacific region, with the organisation relocating its Rainbow Six: Siege team to Japan. 

Regarding the news, Fnatic CEO Sam Mathews said: “We’re so excited to have the strategic know-how of Marubeni leading this funding round. Marubeni’s knowledge of Japan’s business landscape will be a huge asset to Fnatic as we expand our commitment to APAC.”

Fnatic now has 40 pro gamers around the world, playing across 8 titles, along with 100 staff in 6 offices, including one in Tokyo. In addition to competing in esports, the organisation also produces content and develops and sells video game and esports related performance gear and apparel. 

The Marubeni Corporation was founded in 1858 and incorporated in 1949, and today it is engaged in business activities including lifestyle, ICT, real estate, forest products, agri business, chemicals, energy, metals and mineral resources, infrastructure, aerospace, marine, finance, leasing, construction, industrial machinery, mobility, and investments. 

Global esports wagering products and tech provider, Esports Technologies, has launched a new app providing tournament prediction and trivia games for esports fans. 

Esports Games is now available on the Google Play store in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada. It provides two types of engagement games, focused on esports content: tournament predictions and trivia. 

Qualified players are expected to be able to enter and participate in the games for free. For trivia contests, players will answer questions to score points on a global leaderboard, while the prediction game will give players the chance to predict outcomes of live esports matches. 

Players who correctly predict the outcomes of games will be eligible to win prizes totalling the equivalent value of the prize pool of the actual events or tournaments they are predicting. 

Players can answer trivia and make predictions on League of Legends, Dota 2, Counterstrike: Global Offensive, Overwatch, World of Warcraft, Rocket League, Call of Duty, and Valorant.

Bart Barden, COO, Esports Technologies, explained: “The esports market is a passionate, global community. Our goal with this app is to empower the community and provide an avenue for fans to immerse themselves and engage with major live events, like the International or MSI. Fans are now able to make real-time predictions as to what could happen next in the game, competing against fans across the globe. Simultaneously, fans may showcase their esports knowledge to rise to the top of a global leaderboard and earn great prizes while proving their knowledge and expertise.”

The Esports Games app was developed in collaboration with free-to-play platform Splash Tech. 

Staying with Esports Technologies, AYO.NEWS’ Simona Pinterova recently caught up with CEO Aaron Speach, to find out how the company is planning to create the world’s best esports betting platform. 

Global OTT streaming platform Netflix is reportedly planning to enter the video games space, withs its own Apple Arcade-style service. 

According to The Information, people familiar with the situation have said Netflix is trying to recruit a veteran video game industry executive to lead its expansion into video games. They also say the company is looking at offering some kind subscription service similar to Apple Arcade. 

Though Netflix has previously dabbled with video games based on the popular hits Stranger Things, La Casa de Papel, and To All the Boys, and has created interactive shows like Black Mirror: Bandersnatch and You v. Wild, launching a bundle-style video game subscription service would be a major move. 

AYO.NEWS says:

Considering Netflix had 207.64 million paid subscribers in the first quarter of 2021 (according to Statista), if the company manages to come up with a compelling offering, and makes it easy for existing subscribers to upgrade, it’s clearly got the potential to disrupt the market.

It will be interesting to see if Netflix does go down the Apple Arcade route, or if it sets its sights a bit higher and also includes a triple-A offering, like that offered by cloud gaming solution RemoteMyApp, or Blacknut – which could enable it to tempt some players away from PlayStation and Xbox.