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After rolling out Coachella-themed fashion item drops in Fortnite last year, Coachella is expanding even further into gaming with the launch of Coachella Island, a new destination in Fortnite that allows players to virtually experience the popular music festival.

Coachella Island launches tomorrow, April 14, at 3 PM ET. Gamers can find the new destination via the “Epic’s Picks” Discover row in Fortnite or type in the island code: 5449-4207-12803.

Built by creators from Alliance Studios using the game’s Creative mode, the island has a virtual merch tent and Art Park, along with desert skies, mountains, Polo Fields and palm trees inspired by the festival’s landscape.

The Art Park has virtual replicas of the festival’s most recognized art installations that Fortnite community creators recreated. This includes the Coachella Ferris Wheel, Spectra and balloon chains, as well as the two new art installations appearing at this year’s festival and a gallery of Fortography.

Gamers can also participate in creator-made music and art experiences like minigames and quests. There’s an in-game Icon Radio for users to listen to, featuring songs and artists from Coachella’s 2023 lineup.

“The future of in-game music and art experiences should not mimic the real-world, but reimagine the magic and make it more accessible via a new medium,” said Sam Schoonover, innovation lead for Coachella, in a statement. “We believe that the best way to do that is to enable and empower artists to show us the way. Just like the festival IRL is a stage for musicians, Coachella Island is now a canvas for gaming creators. Fortnite provides the tools needed to invite creators and fans to participate in this creative process.”

Image Credits: Fortnite

Similar to last year, players can purchase Coachella-inspired outfits and in-game items in the Fortnite Item Shop. There are two new outfits this year, dubbed “Sunset Alto” and “Desert Dawn Lyric.”

The Sunset Alto outfit includes a cute, orange summery tank, shorts and a tan beach hat. It comes with a bonus Aurora Visualizer alt style that reacts to music, a reactive Sunset Swirl Back Bling and Crystalline Cactus Pickaxe.

The Desert Dawn Lyric outfit includes a streetwear graphic tee, and comes with the reactive Aurora Visualizer alt style, an Airflow Vibes Back Bling and Electropalm Staff Pickaxe.

The music-reactive elements play songs by two Coachella 2023 performers, Bad Bunny and Burna Boy.

And in case you missed last year’s outfits, those will still be available to purchase in the item shop, as well.

Fortnite players are getting a new Coachella-themed destination by Lauren Forristal originally published on TechCrunch

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Savvy Games Group, a games and esports company that is part of the Saudi government’s Public Investment Fund, has agreed to acquire mobile games studio Scopely for $4.9 billion. Founded in 2011, Scopely is known for several popular mobile games including Yahtzee With Buddies, Star Trek Fleet Command, Marvel Strike Force, Stumble Guys and Scrabble Go.

The Los-Angeles based company had a $3.3 billion post-money valuation in 2020 after raising a $340 million funding round. Scopely has grown over the past few years with a number of notable acquisitions. In 2020, Scopely acquired Disney’s FoxNext Games, and in 2021, the company acquired Sony Pictures Entertainment’s GSN Games for $1 billion.

“Scopely is one of the fastest-growing games companies today, and we have long admired their ability to build loyal, engaged player communities,” said Savvy Games Group CEO Brian Ward in a press release. “At Savvy Games Group, our mission is to invest in – and grow – the global games community by inviting the best minds to join us.”

Scopely will operate as an “autonomous company” under the Savvy umbrella, which includes esports firms ESL and Faceit. The company will continued to be led by co-CEOs Walter Driver and Javier Ferreira.

“As part of the Savvy Games Group portfolio, we will continue to build one of the world’s most diversified mobile-first games companies,” said Scopely co-CEO Javier Ferreira in a press release. Our technology platform, market-leading studio ecosystem, and world-class team have always enabled us to stay one step ahead of the rapidly growing games industry, delivering long-lasting franchises that delight players around the world. We look forward to reimagining the future of play with Brian and the Savvy team.”

Savvy says the acquisition, which is subject to regulatory approval, will strengthen its ability to deliver new products for the global gaming community. The company also says the acquisition will build on Scopely’s cross-platform approach to extend its live services expertise to new segments like PC, console and more.

Earlier this week, Bloomberg reported that the Saudi Arabian government is betting $38 billion to become the next hub for the video-game industry, and that Savvy is looking to develop and acquire top-tier games.

The deal marks the sixth biggest acquisition in video games history in terms of price. The top place in this category goes to Microsoft buying Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion in a deal that’s still in the process of being completed, followed by Take-Two acquiring Zynga for $12.7 billion, Tencent buying Supercell for $8.6 billion, Microsoft purchasing ZeniMax for $8.1 billion and Activision buying King for $5.9 billion.

Saudi’s Savvy Games Group to acquire mobile games company Scopely for $4.9 billion by Aisha Malik originally published on TechCrunch

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Back in November, Nintendo and app developer DeNA announced its joint venture company called Nintendo Systems, which is meant to help reinforce Nintendo’s business and “create value-added services,” according to Nintendo’s Japanese website. Today, the companies officially launched the Nintendo Systems website.

“Nintendo Systems was born in April 2023, led by a team of engineers from Nintendo and DeNA, to create a system that makes it easy to deliver Nintendo entertainment to consumers,” Nintendo and DeNA wrote in a message posted on the new Nintendo Systems website (loosely translated from Japanese to English).

The eight-year-old partnership between Nintendo and DeNA dates back to 2015. The companies have worked on various titles together, such as Super Mario Run, Mario Kart Tour, Pokémon Masters and Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, among others.

“The technology surrounding the Internet is changing at a dizzying pace day by day and is becoming more complex. Under these circumstances, Nintendo Systems will leverage the relationship of trust between Nintendo and DeNA, which has been cultivated through a partnership of more than seven years, and use Nintendo’s originality and DeNA’s knowledge of technology as the driving force to create new innovations for the world,” the companies added.

It’s not yet known what exactly the two companies are currently working on together. At this time, no games or software have been announced.

TechCrunch reached out to Nintendo for comment.

Nintendo’s Tetsuya Sasaki is the president of Nintendo Systems. In 1995, Sasaki joined the company as a software engineer for the Entertainment Analysis & Development Division. He is credited for his work on titles like The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Animal Crossing: Wild World, Wii Sports and Mario Kart DS.

Nintendo and mobile games company DeNA launch Nintendo Systems by Lauren Forristal originally published on TechCrunch

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Netflix is working on a new feature that could bring its mobile games to the TV. Based on code hidden within Netflix’s iOS app, the company may allow iPhones to be used as video game controllers.

The code was discovered by app developer Steve Moser and reported by Bloomberg. One line of code says, “A game on your TV needs a controller to play. Do you want to use this phone as a game controller?”

The findings point to a major move from the company as it shifts from smartphones and tablets to the big screen.

Netflix declined to comment to TechCrunch.

Netflix has previously admitted that it wants to bring games to more devices. “As you can imagine, we do want Netflix games to be playable on every Netflix device that you have,” Leanne Loombe, Netflix’s VP of external games, said last week.

Plus, Netflix posted a job listing last November for a game director to work on a AAA PC game.

The company also said it would expand into cloud gaming, according to Netflix VP of Gaming Mike Verdu, speaking at TechCrunch Disrupt in October 2022.

Since Netflix entered the mobile gaming space in 2021, the company has released more than 55 titles, ranging from original titles based on IP like “Stranger Things” and “The Queen’s Gambit” to popular games such as Heads Up!, Vikings: Valhalla, Valiant Hearts and Country Friends, among others.

Netflix recently announced its 2023 slate of mobile games, which includes 40 titles like Mighty Quest: Rogue Palace. There are 70 games in development. Next year, subscribers will get access to the popular puzzle games Monument Valley 1 and Monument Valley 2.

While Netflix doesn’t disclose how many of its subscribers play the mobile games, an Apptopia report from August 2022 indicated that less than 1% of subs are interested in playing them. Netflix’s upcoming feature will likely convince a few more players to check it out, but it remains to be seen just how many.

Netflix appears to be working to bring games to TV with the iPhone as a controller by Lauren Forristal originally published on TechCrunch

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Ubisoft, the developer behind popular games like Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry, announced that it’s using an AI “Ghostwriter” tool to write dialogue for some of its games with the aim of keeping NPCs (non-playable characters) individually interesting and realistic with less manual work.

The company says the tool isn’t replacing video game writers, but instead will alleviate the task of writing barks, which are phrases or sounds made by NPCs during a triggered event. Ghostwriter generates first drafts of barks in order to give scriptwriters more time to focus on the general narrative.

“Crowd chatter and barks are central features of player immersion in games – NPCs speaking to each other, enemy dialogue during combat, or an exchange triggered when entering an area all provide a more realistic world experience and make the player feel like the game around them exists outside of their actions,” Ubisoft wrote in a blog post.

“However, both require time and creative effort from scriptwriters that could be spent on other core plot items. Ghostwriter frees up that time, but still allows the scriptwriters a degree of creative control.”

The process starts with scriptwriters first creating a character and a type of interaction or utterance they would like to generate. Ghostwriter then generates variations that the scriptwriter can choose from and edit to fit their needs. The process uses pairwise comparison as a method of evaluation and improvement, which means that for each variation generated, the tool provides two choices which will be compared and chosen by the scriptwriter. Once one is selected, the tool learns from the preferred choice. The idea is that after thousands of selections are made by scriptwriters, the tool will become more effective and accurate.

Ben Swanson, the R&D scientist at Ubisoft who created Ghostwriter, says technology like Ghostwriter requires scriptwriters to learn how to not only use the tool, but also integrate it in their video game production process. Swanson and his team’s goal is to give this AI power to narrative designers, who will be able to eventually create their own AI system tailored to their own design needs. To do this, the production created a tool called Ernestine that facilitates anyone to create their own machine learning models used in Ghostwriter.

It’s worth noting that following Ubisoft’s announcement, some game developers took to social media calling for the company to invest in human writers instead. Ubisoft responded to criticism in a tweet, noting that the tool was created in collaboration with writers and is simply about creating more variations for short lines given to NPCs.

Ubisoft’s new AI tool automatically generates dialogue for non-playable game characters by Aisha Malik originally published on TechCrunch

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As competition among smart TV makers heats up, Amazon today is introducing an expanded Fire TV lineup which now includes more sizes for its top-of-the-line Omni QLED series as well as a new, lower-cost Fire TV 2-Series that will start at $199.99. The company is also bringing its TVs to new markets globally, updating some features — like the Omni QLED’s “ambient” mode — and will roll out its cloud gaming service Luna to countries outside the U.S. for the first time.

Amazon first announced its Omni QLED TVs last fall as a way to bring better picture quality to customers with a 4K QLED display. The sets, which initially shipped in both 65-inch ($799.99) and 75-inch ($1,099.99) sizes, were the first Amazon Fire TVs to ship with Dolby Vision IQ. They also support HDR 10+ Adaptive and Adaptive Brightness, which adjusts the picture brightness and contrast based on the room’s brightness.

Now, the company is expanding its QLED lineup with three new models starting at $449.99, in 43-inch, 50-inch and 55-inch sizes. Like their larger counterparts, these will still include QLED displays with up to 96 dimming zones and the sensor-driven “Ambient Experience” features.

The TVs ship with a custom sensor package on the front that includes a presence sensor that allows the TV to turn its “Ambient Experience” on or off based on whether someone has entered or left the room thanks to an ambient light sensor that helps the TV understand the context of the movement. That is, if you just walked past the TV to get a midnight snack it may remain off, but if you walk into the room in the morning, it may load the ambient experience to help you start your day.

Image Credits: Amazon

The experience includes a free package of artwork and photography and various Alexa widgets that can be displayed either compacted or expanded, delivering things like news and headlines, your calendar, notes and reminders, streaming recommendations and more.

Now, Amazon says the experience is being updated with new art, too. Specifically, it’s adding something it’s calling “dynamic art,” or art that adapts to the current environment. The art will change based on factors like the time of day, temperature, weather and more. Initially, Amazon is working with contemporary artist Samuel Stubblefield to create the dynamic art package.

“We want to make smart TVs that are actually smart. That means things like bringing together content usefully…but we also want them to be beautiful and useful throughout more parts of the day and infused with ambient intelligence to make them more powerful for customers,” noted Daniel Rausch, VP of Entertainment Devices & Services at Amazon, in a conversation about the new Fire TV products.

Image Credits: Amazon (Fire TV Omni QLED Series)

These newly added QLED models will become available for preorder today and ship on May 11. The 43″ will be $449.99; the 50″ is $529.99; and the 55″ is $599.99.

Amazon is also now introducing a new line of more affordable Fire TVs, dubbed the Fire TV 2-Series, which slots in below the existing QLED and 4-Series. These will ship in two models to start: 32-inch ($199.99) and 40-inch ($249.99) options in HD. The 2-Series lineup supports HDR 10, HLG and Dolby Digital Audio and comes with an Alexa Voice remote.

Image Credits: Amazon (Fire TV 2-Series)

These models can be ordered now and start shipping today.

In addition, Amazon says it will now begin to ship its Omni QLED Series, 4-Series and new 2-Series in the U.K., Germany and Mexico for the first time.

Rausch says the company has now sold more than 200 million Fire TV devices worldwide, including TVs and media players, and has shipped over 260 Fire TV models with its partners, like TCL, Hisense, Yamada, Xiaomi and others. As TV sets themselves become more powerful, many consumers are now opting to buy a TV with Fire TV baked in, rather than as a streaming player add-on. This has resulted in TVs becoming the fastest-growing part of the Fire TV business, he notes.

Image Credits: Amazon (Luna)

Alongside the TV expansion, the company will also bring its Luna cloud gaming service to new markets outside the U.S. for the first time.

Designed to work with Fire TV, Luna offers Prime customers a rotating selection of monthly games that can be streamed and played using a Bluetooth controller like Amazon’s Luna Controller, or even with a smartphone through a companion app.

Luna customers can optionally choose to subscribe to premium packages, like Luna+, Ubisoft+ and Jackbox Games. Luna+ includes a broad selection of games like action, adventure, platformer, indie, shooter, racing and classic games for $9.99 per month. The Ubisoft+ subscription, meanwhile, features top titles and fan favorites like Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry for $17.99 per month. And Jackbox Games offers a party gaming set for $4.99 per month.

The service has been generally available in the U.S. for over a year and is now coming to the U.K., Germany and Canada, Amazon says, which will allow it to reach some of the new Fire TV markets.

Amazon isn’t alone in targeting consumers with TVs running its own OS — rival Roku in January revealed its first-ever TVs designed and built by the company. But neither effort is meant to preclude the companies from working with partners — it’s more of a way to demonstrate what’s possible from the company’s own software and specs while generating additional revenue from hardware sales.

Amazon expands Fire TV lineup with more QLED models, entry-level 2-Series TVs and new markets by Sarah Perez originally published on TechCrunch

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Two key players in the web3 gaming space predict exponential expansion in the next few years.

Robbie Ferguson, co-founder and president of web3 gaming company Immutable, and Ryan Wyatt, president of layer-2 chain Polygon Labs, told TechCrunch+ that web3 will add the first 10 million to 100 million gamers within the next year or two.

“We’re going to see 40% of the web3 games [ever] built go live over the next 12 to 18 months, which will be a huge amount of attempts or shot-on-goal to have that 100 million players,” Ferguson added. If this prediction becomes true, it would represent a massive wave of adoption that the decentralized gaming industry didn’t have before.

On Monday, web3 gaming firm Immutable teamed up with layer-2 blockchain Polygon to help grow the scaling and adoption of the subsector. The collaboration will focus on making web3-enabled games faster to build, easier to use and less risky for larger gaming studios and independent developers to get involved.

“What we now are seeing is these games are being built to go live because games have a lead time of two to four years,” Ferguson said. “What’s required is incredible infrastructure for them to build an incredible customer experience where players can use this.”

“Over $100 billion are spent by players every year on in-game items,” Ferguson said, implying that the market for web3 games could be large. “This is not the box copy of Fortnite or the ability to download a game. This is literally [money spent on] skins, Candy Crush coins and costumes.”

But those assets are not ownable by players or, at best, are part of a gray marketplace, he added. “The opportunity here is to take a multi-100-billion-dollar asset class and make it truly ownable by players and make sure that the rights and the keys stick with them rather than a major third-party company.”

The only way web3 gaming scales is through true property rights, Ferguson thinks. “And if they have no idea how web3 works under the hood.”

Web3 gaming will onboard up to 100M gamers in next 2 years, Polygon and Immutable presidents predict by Jacquelyn Melinek originally published on TechCrunch

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Web3 gaming firm Immutable and layer-2 blockchain Polygon hope that a new strategic alliance will accelerate innovation and adoption in the nascent crypto gaming space, the two companies announced at the Game Developer Conference on Monday.

“For us this is a pretty obvious play,” Robbie Ferguson, co-founder and president of Immutable, said. “We realized very quickly the scaling limitations of Ethereum, but we never wanted to compete with it.” Polygon could help Immutable avoid Ethereum congestion and costs without having to build its own alternative.

The alliance will focus on making web3-enabled games faster, easier and less risky for larger gaming studios and independent developers to get involved.

Last year, games building on both platforms received about $2 billion in investor funding, Ferguson and Ryan Wyatt, president of Polygon Labs, shared with TechCrunch.

“For me, this is like the next evolution of mainstream adoption,” Wyatt said. “You’re already starting to see blockchain games with higher fidelity.”

Immutable’s new zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (zkEVM) — fancy terminology for virtual machines that compress data to improve scaling and security on the blockchain — will be powered by Polygon technology and supported on its platform. Polygon’s zkEVM scaling technology aims to lower transaction costs while remaining compatible and secure with the layer-1 blockchain Ethereum, which is critical for the long-term growth of the blockchain and its ecosystem.

Polygon is “a very clean, well-polished end-to-end solution and market for game developers and gamers,” Wyatt said. “There’s been some skepticism about where this can go and what is it going to look like […] now you’re going to see it go into overdrive these next couple of years.”

Combining the two companies’ technologies could help scale transactions 100 to 1,000 times more than before, Ferguson said.

While this initiative is new, both platforms have formed massive gaming ecosystems through partnerships and integrations with gaming studios, traditional businesses and crypto companies.

Polygon Labs, the team behind the decentralized Polygon protocol, has worked with gaming companies like Square Enix, Neowiz, Midnight Society, Plai Labs and Tilting Point. The company’s layer-2 scaling solution has seen notable adoption, including tens of thousands of decentralized apps deployed, more than 220 million unique addresses served, more than 1 million smart contracts deployed and billions of total transactions processed since inception, it shared.

The Polygon network is also integrated into crypto projects like Aave, Uniswap and OpenSea, and well-known enterprises including Robinhood, Stripe and Adobe, which could help extend its reach even further.

The Polygon network also hosts some of the biggest web3 gaming projects and publishers like Ubisoft, Atari, Animoca Brands, Decentraland and Sandbox, among others. In the past year, Polygon partnered with a number of other big brands like Starbucks for its Odyssey digital collectible rewards program and Disney for its accelerator program, while also having major clothing brands like Prada and Adidas launch NFT projects through its blockchain.

Separately, Immutable has onboarded web3 games and initiatives to its platform in recent months, including brands like GameStop, DC Comics, TikTok and Marvel and IP from Disney and Star Wars. The platform also launched a $500 million fund in June to boost web3 gaming adoption.

The announcements noted above may point toward growth in the web3 gaming industry; more brands entering the web3 gaming space could grow the larger decentralized gaming market, somewhat akin to how integrations between Web 2.0 companies have historically helped grow their own reach.

“Gamers just want to play great games; it’s that simple,” Wyatt said. “You really just got to get to a point where you’re abstracting the crypto and jargon away and then have just a really exciting game. And that’s what’s coming on the horizon.”

Polygon and Immutable partner to help onboard more gamers and developers into web3 by Jacquelyn Melinek originally published on TechCrunch

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