GamesBeat weekly roundup: GamesBeat 2016 recapped and Overwatch hits 15 million players

Welcome to another GamesBeat weekly roundup! We had a busy week running and covering our GamesBeat 2016 conference, which you can read all about in our recaps below. Don’t worry, we were also writing plenty of news about the industry, including financial results from EA and Activision Blizzard.

Happy reading, and have a great weekend!

Pieces of flair and opinion

• The DeanBeat: What we learned from GamesBeat 2016
• Zynga boss looks to new games and reliable hits to replenish its audience
• How Blizzard made you fall in love with its characters before releasing Overwatch
• Riot Games’ next vista for League of Legends: College esports
• Esports’ ticket to going mainstream: big brands, bigger audience
• Lightning round speakers at GamesBeat teach us how to do the right thing
• With $25 billion in exits in 2016, a few VCs remain laser-focused on gaming
• Monetizing VR is like the Wild West — but you can still make money today
• What esports can learn from the NFL, Major League Baseball, and the World Cup
• From GamesBeat 2016: What comes after Pokémon Go and the state of games today
• The right (and wrong) way to get influencers involved in your marketing plan
• Pokémon Go boss John Hanke doesn’t want people to stare at their phones either
• How securing a publishing deal for your game is like starting a romance
• Analyst Michael Pachter: Ubiquitous multiplayer is gaming’s future
• Why big publishers cannot ‘wait and see’ with VR
• EA’s Peter Moore wants to transform esports jocks into mainstream stars
• Here’s every main stage talk from GamesBeat 2016
• Google Daydream is looking for the ‘Citizen Kane’ of VR games
• How PlayStation VR’s Richard Marks sees VR as social and shareable
• Why AR game developers are thankful for Pokémon Go
• How Lionsgate marries Hollywood films with VR games
• Virtual reality’s biggest challenge: Don’t be the next 3DTV
• Oculus VR’s Jason Rubin predicts the pants-ripping next wave of VR
• Pokémon Go trivia and the history of its developer, Niantic

Above: Overwatch is one of Activision Blizzard’s jewels.

Image Credit: Blizzard

News

• HTC plans to complement Steam with its own Viveport VR app store
• TheWaveVR raises $2.5 million to mix music and virtual reality
• Activision reports record Q2 on the strength of Overwatch, Call of Duty, and Candy Crush
• Grand Theft Auto and NBA power Take-Two’s strong revenues and minimize its Q1 losses
• Overwatch has more than 15 million players
• Watch the first gameplay video from Bethesda’s Prey
• Aladdin and other classic 16-bit Disney games are now on GOG
• Job Simulator creator Owlchemy Labs raises $5 million for VR games
• EA’s digital sales drive $682 million in revenue for Q1
• Amazon makes it easy to create voice-based adventure games for Alexa
• FunPlus invests in Hover Junkers creator Stress Level Zero
• Playtika deal drives game acquisitions to record $25 billion this year
• Eleague’s Counter-Strike: Global Offensive esports season on TBS attracts 19 million viewers
• With new human augmentation event, Square Enix gets serious about Deus Ex in real life
• Former EA creative director Rich Hilleman joins Amazon Game Studios
• China’s Giant leads consortium to buy Playtika for $4.4 billion

Above: Augment your reality.

Image Credit: The Pokemon Company

Mobile and social

• Pokémon Go developer plans to fix ‘bug’ that makes creatures run away more often
• Warhammer 40,000 swaps vehicles for people in endless runner for mobile
• Zynga appoints former EA exec Matt Bromberg as COO
• Penn National Gaming acquires casino game studio Rocket Games for $60 million
• Netmarble brings its San Francisco export ChronoBlade from South Korea to the U.S.
• Pokémon Go studio Niantic addresses problems: ‘… Interesting … challenge’
• Samsung’s $350 Gear 360 VR camera goes on sale in the U.S. August 19
• Jesse Divnich joins Canada’s Hibernum as vice president of product
• App Annie’s Marketing Intelligence will make $87 billion in user acquisition spending smarter
• Kabam teams up with Hasbro to make a Transformers mobile game (update)
• GungHo looks beyond Puzzles & Dragons — to Japan’s gaming iconoclast

Reviews, previews, and interviews

• MSI’s desktop GPU-equipped laptop is one helluva gaming and VR rig
• Xbox One S review, 1080p verdict: Just a minor improvement
• Developer made Ascension VR to confront her fear of flying
• How Illidan got his groove (and life) back for World of Warcraft: Legion