Real Luck Group, operator of esports-first betting site Luckbox, has partnered with Publishme to build its in-house content studio and deliver Luckbox’s content marketing strategy. 

Publishme is a full-service marketing agency focused on gaming companies and brands, and has worked with major clients including Activision, Epic Games, Red Bull, Mastercard, and Unilever. 

Luckbox CEO Thomas Rosander said: “Content is a key part of our marketing mix, since esports fans and gamers consume content like no other generation before them. Until now, Luckbox’s growth has been primarily organic, and this partnership represents the beginning of our drive to scale our customer acquisition efforts. Our Head of Content, Nevzat Uçar, is highly experienced delivering content that resonates with targeted audiences, especially at his prior roles at Red Bull and Riot Games. We are confident that Publishme will complement his skills to drive content that will bring esports and gaming audiences on to our platform.”

Luckbox Head of Content Nevzat Uçar added: “I’ll be leading our Publishme relationship to build our exclusive, in-house content studio to convert our ideas and content strategy into action and realization. The Publishme team will support Luckbox in creating written, visual and video content as well as graphic design, creating esports tournaments, helping on influencer management and production. They’ll work with us to convey our message to the esports and gaming audience through our owned and managed channels.”

Publishme CEO Özgür Özalp commented: “As a marketing agency in the rapidly growing gaming and esports industry, we’re always looking for new partnerships to add value to our business and deliver the best content to the gaming community on a global scale. I believe that the Luckbox’ s  global vision and our upcoming projects that we will develop and execute together will create a huge differentiator in terms of attracting customers. We’re excited that we’ll be able to share our projects and contents with the global gaming community.”

Square Enix Montréal™, the  studio behind Hitman Sniper®, and the GO® series, has revealed the announcement trailer of its new Hitman Sniper mobile game, Hitman Sniper: The Shadows (formerly Project Hitman Sniper Assassins) at SQUARE ENIX PRESENTS E3 showcase.

Hitman Sniper: The Shadows introduces a wholly original story set in the Hitman Universe. The game focuses on events following the disappearance of Agent 47 and follows the story of The Shadows, a group of highly skilled assassins – Soji, Kiya, Kolzak, Knight, and Stone – within the hidden world of assassination, where a new criminal network threatens global stability. Diana Burnwood and the International Contract Agency (ICA) activate Initiative 426, aka The Shadows, to eliminate this threat.

Players must be meticulous, creative, and untraceable. They must strike in secret, manipulate their enemies, and use the environment to their advantage to take down high-level international targets, build their reputation and evolve into their own version of The Shadows.

“While Hitman Sniper: The Shadows builds on the fundamentals of Hitman Sniper, it is not a sequel to that experience and doesn’t share the same fictional universe. Instead, Hitman Sniper: The Shadows takes the franchise to a whole new level and experience, in terms of story, characters, and gameplay,” said Dominic Allaire, executive producer at Square Enix Montréal.

“We were given an amazing opportunity to extend the Hitman universe, not only by delivering a fresh take on the world, but also a cast of new playable characters,” said Fahad Khan, lead game designer at Square Enix Montréal. “Our new protagonists all have unique backstories and different styles that could turn into player style, amplifying their play experience, creativity and strategic choices when approaching a contract.”

Hitman Sniper: The Shadows is a free-to-play game set to be released in 2021 on iOS and Android. More exciting updates will be revealed later this year.

Esports tournament organiser BLAST Premier and NFT solutions provider Bondly, have partnered to launch a gamified collection of NFTs featuring original artwork of chickens synonymous with Counter-Strike. 

BLAST’s first NFT chicken-themed collection goes on sale on Tuesday, June 15. Powered by the Bondly platform, BLAST NFTs start at $18 USD. Through June 14, esports fans can sign up at (www.blastchickencoop.digital) to receive an exclusive BLAST founder’s edition NFT in a digital wallet.

Chickens are a popular and jovial reference point for Counter-Strike – becoming the unofficial animal and adopted pet of the game. BLAST and Bondly have taken this iconic and prevalent part of the Counter-Strike universe and created a digitalised offering that resonates with the esports and NFT community.

BLAST has created two teams (Team Red and Team Blue) of three chicken characters each with their own distinct personality. Through Bondly’s gamification process, the chicken NFT owner has the ability to upgrade it by blending multiple NFTs using BondSwap. In addition, users can choose their favourite character, collect an entire team or hold onto their best and rarest chicken NFTs through gamification. 

Bondly utilises Polygon (MATIC) Proof-of-Stake (PoS) mechanism that allows for the safe, accessible and environmentally friendly creation, integration and purchase of NFTs – making for digital artwork collectibles that are available to everyone. Every chicken NFT created through this process will be carbon positive.

Faye Marlborough, Head of Merchandise for BLAST, said: “When we approached the idea of making available a range of collectable NFTs, we wanted to ensure we were creating something that was fun, accessible and affordable – while ensuring these collectables are more than just a product but an experience. We’re excited to work with Bondly to help navigate us through our first venture into NFTs, their technology and expertise will ensure a simple, environmentally aware and enjoyable introduction into the world of NFTs for our community.” 

Jack Flaherty, CEO of Sports at Bondly, added: “BLAST’s chicken-themed NFTs developed by Bondly, extends the fan’s feeling of competition beyond the tournament through buying, collecting, and trading of our gamified NFTs. Combining our design studio and proprietary technologies, we have created the first ever NFT swap-based gamification experience for esports fans.”

AYO.NEWS says:

We love it! This is exactly what makes NFTs the future – chicken art 🙂 Staying with Bondly, earlier this month G2 Esports announced it was going to launch a series of NFT’s via the platform, with the first set to debut on 30 June.

Slovakia-based social game developer Pixel Federation has announced a new environment-focused Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategy. 

In 2020, Pixel Federation generated €47.8M in revenue and had 120M players across international markets, making it Slovakia’s biggest games development company. Its portfolio of popular free-to-play games includes Diggy’s Adventure, Seaport, Trainstation 2, and Trainstation. 

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the company pivoted its CSR strategy to support its home city of Bratislava by fundraising for frontline workers. Together with a number of other parties, the company launched a nationwide fundraising campaign, attracting the support of tech giant Amazon, ČSOB Foundation and many others, and raising over €1.4M. 

Now, with the COVID pandemic subsiding, the company is refocusing its upcoming CSR strategy towards a number of environmental projects. 

Pixel Federation Co-Founder, CSR Strategy lead and CLO, Lucia Šickova, said: “Education, the environment, culture and sport are still only an appendix on the edge of many Slovakians’ understanding of life skills. It’s a long-term and unchanged situation in non-strength sectors as they don’t have a quick return on investment. We want to ensure that the Slovakia we leave behind is better than the one we were born into.

“Our CSR strategy has always been a combination of long-term, consistent support for the projects we believe in, as well as one-time support for efforts we see as an urgent need. In recent years, we have also supported the Kramáre Hospital, the well-known Red Nose initiative, and focused our efforts to fundraise for frontline workers when the COVID-19 pandemic first hit Slovakia.”

Pixel Federation Co-Founder and former CEO, Šimon Šicko, added: “I see this activity as a partnership with the city. Our motivation is not personal or corporate PR, our motivation is impact and something that will outlive all of us.”

One initiative the company is already engaged with is planting trees in partnership with Bratislava city authorities. The first 12 trees, out of a planned 10,000, have already been planted on Šancova Street in the city.

Additionally, the Pixel Federation is also planning to work closely with BROZ (Bratislava Regional Conservation Association), which brings together professional conservationists dedicated to the protection and restoration of rare habitats in the Little Carpathians mountain range. 

Image credit: Pixel Federation

Investing in the Future through Education

The company hasn’t just made an impact with its environmental and COVID relief efforts either. Pixel Federation’s charitable ventures originally focused on raising awareness of gaming and providing opportunities for young people in a field that the country’s education system was neglecting. 

Pixel’s first educational project was the Butterfly Effect, which brought together successful Slovak digital companies including Sygic, Leaf, HubHub, and Pixel Federation, in an effort to share knowledge with young people. More than 130 program graduates successfully created 22 products and four startups as a result. 

With long-term financial support from Pixel Federation, the dedicated people behind Edulienka were able to create a standardized education system that focuses on innovative and comprehensive development of 21st century skills in socially disadvantaged children. 

Distributed among a number of schools in Slovakia, Pixel’s time and funds supported this project to ensure the expansion of the first school from 15 to 100 pupils and enabled those from socially disadvantaged families to study.

English Championship football club, Reading FC, is launching a dedicated esports platform for its supporters. 

The platform is being created by New York-based gaming solutions company Rival, and will be used to host various FIFA 21 tournaments, the first of which is slated for 17 June. 

Commenting on the news, Head of Commercial at Reading FC, Tim Kilpatrick, said: “As we celebrate the 150th anniversary of our club this season and celebrate our rich history, we are really pleased to also be looking to the future and announcing the launch of our gaming community on the Rival platform. We’ll be offering fresh content, experiences and activities that will engage and build on the popularity and connection of esports and football with the gaming community.”

Rival CMO, Dan Parise, added: “Rival is thrilled to partner with Reading to launch Royals Esports in its milestone season to connect with the global gaming audience. We look forward to working with the club to innovate with new programming and revenue opportunities, and to provide ways to integrate Reading’s sponsors into the platform.”

Reading FC is Rival’s third English football club partner, joining Premier League sides Watford and Aston Villa, and will join a roster of more than 20 clients across sports and brands, including clubs in the MLS, NFL, NHL, and NBA. 

BLAST has teamed up with Fortnite to conceptualise, produce and deliver the inaugural Fortnite Champion Series (FNCS) All-Star Showdown (23-26 June) competitive event.    

The All-Star Showdown will act as a mid-year celebration of the FNCS and will feature top Fortnite players from all over the world, competing online against each other in a variety of skill challenges and matchups. 

BLAST will look to utilise its expertise and experience in hosting leading tournaments in popular competitive gaming titles to provide a new, innovative, and engaging experience for the Fortnite community. 

The All-Star Showdown will invite players from the top 30 FNCS trios within each of the seven Fortnite server regions (Oceania, Asia, Middle East, Europe, Brazil, North America East, and North America West). Players have qualified for the tournament by placing in the top 15 teams in each region from FNCS Chapter 2 Season 5 and FNCS Chapter 2 Season 6.

The tournament will feature brand new Fortnite Creative maps that will showcase and test individual player skills including aiming, editing, and building. The top trios from each of the prior FNCS tournaments will also compete in a team-based, non-Battle Royale mode and the entire week will culminate with a solo Battle Royale competition separating all top trios to determine who is the best player in their respective server regions.

Nicolas Estrup, VP of Product at BLAST, said: “We’re thrilled to embark on this journey with the talented people behind Fortnite Competitive and the FNCS. Being able to dedicate challenges to showcase all the intricacies of what it means to be a top Fortnite player really excites us and we hope the community will feel the same.

“Utilising the BLAST production, tournament operations and technology expertise in a Battle Royale game is something we’ve looked forward to for a long time. We have taken inspiration from the best of traditional sports and competitive gaming to ensure this new event and format is at the forefront of viewer experiences in competitive gaming today.”

The event will be broadcast globally and localized for Europe, South America, North America East and North America West. The tournament will be available on watch.fortnite.com, Twitch, YouTube and Twitter with community streaming opportunities made freely available.

BLAST will be approaching the event with added focus on player-led features, in-depth storyline telling, elevated in-game production and global community integration.