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The unlikely success of "Dave the Diver"
Netflix's game streaming, the story of Dave the Diver and Mirage is coming faster
Bobby Voicu
August 16, 2023
I think you're defined as a company by what you choose to do and what you choose not to do. - Mark Pincus, founder of Zynga
As we navigate the midweek hustle, let’s find out about Zynga's leap into the Web3 realm, the latest investment of PUBG parent company and some insights about adults and gaming.
In our weekly section, The Power-Up Chronicles, find out how Dave the Diver, the major indie hit of 2023, was built.
Round-up of the day
😈 Since 2016, Pokémon Go was downloaded 678 million times, all over the world. A quarter of these downloads come from the US. (link)
📺 Tudum! Netflix is testing game streaming to TV in a limited beta including 2 games, Oxenfree and Molehew’s Mining Adventure (link)
Zynga announced Sugartown, its first Web3 game and platform. Sugartown is built on the Ethereum network. (link)
Web3 gaming adoption is skewing toward Asia, and the rest of the world may have to play catch-up (link)
Short form gaming is something I only recently heard of and it’s quite interesting. FreshCut’s short-form gaming videos hit 2M visitors and 900k MAU in 5 months (link)
Biz Reel
Pure compassion or poor PR? The Pokémon Company donates $200K to Hawaii Wildfire Relief Fund. Before that, Honolulu was announced as the location of the next year's Pokémon World Championship. (link)
Krafton, the company behind PUBG, plans to invest another $150 million in Indian games startups over the next few years. Last year, India banned PUBG local version, BGMI, for the second time due to "national security concerns" linked to Tencent's partial ownership of Krafton. (link)
New Zealand: CODE Funding ($10k-150k NZD per project) is now open to devs outside of Dunedin. (link)
Chinese publishers developed 37 of the top 100 mobile games in July, totaling an impressive $2 billion revenue. (link)
Game Central
Now this was a bit unexpected: Assassin's Creed Mirage has gone gold and will launch a week earlier, on October 5. (link)
August Savings comes to PlayStation Store until August 30, including discounts for Dead Island 2, F1 2023 and many other games. (link)
The Power-Up Chronicles
"Dave the Diver", developed by MINTROCKET, became a major indie hit in 2023, blending diving adventures with restaurant management, and drawing inspiration from a real-life Japanese pub and a manga. The game's success was bolstered by Unity's tools and a crucial Early Access phase, allowing the developers to refine gameplay based on player feedback.
Read the story on GamesIndustry.biz
AI tools, including PicFinder and MidJourney, offer dynamic solutions for game art design, enabling faster prototype creation, varied art styles, and concept enhancement. By leveraging AI-generated art, developers can efficiently provide better briefs to artists, generate unique game assets, and test various design iterations for optimal player appeal.
A useful guide by Chay Hunter on GameAnalytics
Understanding the gaming community - the gaming community is a diverse and ever-evolving group with varied demographics, interests, and engagement levels. Content creators and marketers can effectively connect with this community by understanding its intricacies and prioritizing authenticity, engagement, consistency, and variety in their content.
Did you know?
Video games are more popular among adults. In the United States, about 65% of adults (more than 164 million) play video games.
The largest percentage of gamers (38%) are aged between 18 and 34, according to the Entertainment Software Association.