Each week I compile a gaming industry insights newsletter that I share with other Rioters, including Riot’s senior leadership. This edition is the public version that I publish broadly every week as well. Opinions are mine.
Hi, my name is Kenny Liu, and I work in Revenue Strategy at Riot Games. Each week I compile a gaming industry insights newsletter that I share with other Rioters, including Riot’s senior leadership. This edition is the public version that I publish broadly every week as well. Opinions are mine.
See more or subscribe at: https://tinyletter.com/kliuless
[KL: Our team is looking to hire several associate managers here and here. Separately, I will be attending GDC next month, so if you would like to meet to discuss potential opportunities or just say hi, please feel free to reach out to me directly!]
Company Strategy & Ownership Model
HBR: Is Your Company’s Strategy Aligned with Your Ownership Model?
"How companies are owned is an often-overlooked factor in their success (or failure). But a firm’s ownership model significantly influences what it’s good at, where it struggles, which opportunities it can pursue, and what it is vulnerable to"
"The advantage of a particular ownership model for a firm’s strategy depends in part on how important scale and control are to the firm’s success
Being public allows a business to access the resources of outside investors. But that comes at the cost of giving up control over key decisions (including how success is defined), as well as submitting to the rules that are designed to protect outside shareholders. The term 'going public' literally means that a company is opening up to the scrutiny and regulation that accompany broad-based shareholding
The private model allows companies to exert more control over their destiny, and many are truly private in the sense of being under the radar. That freedom of action, though, comes at the cost of being reliant on the capital the owners can generate through their own resources or what they can convince others to lend them
Hybrids are in between these trade-offs. For example, Tesla has been able to use public equity to scale up its production while allowing founder Elon Musk to effectively retain control. However, Tesla is not immune to market pressures. Musk made headlines when he expressed his frustration with the pressures of being a public company and his desire to take Tesla private"
Public
Bloomberg: "The Flops Are Piling Up for Video-Game Titans"
Activision Blizzard Lays Off Hundreds of Employees [KL: 8% of staff]
Zynga’s turnaround: How once-beleaguered game company plans for 2019 growth
Nexon celebrates record year for revenue and income
Private
Rumor: Unity Technologies Targeting 2020 IPO
Hybrid
Supercell CEO: My take on Supercell's 2018 and things I look forward to this year
Multi-Platform / Post-Platform
Disney says its future video game efforts lie in licensing, not publishing
XR: AR/MR/VR
Tech
Stratechery: The Cost of Apple News
Stratechery: Spotify’s Podcast Aggregation Play
a16z: Better Together: Humanity + Machine Learning
a16z: Cameras that understand: portrait mode and Google Lens
Google has no plans to lower its 30% cut
Google is now doing "federated" machine learning: training global models based on data that never leaves your phone
Amazon bought Eero, a leading startup selling mesh wifi access points. With Ring and Alexa, Amazon is deepening its strategy around connecting and controlling home devices
Overtime
EEDAR: 2018 Q4 Round Up
Newzoo: Global Esports Economy Will Top $1 Billion for the First Time in 2019
Former Telltale Devs Form AdHoc Studio, Continue Adventure Game Legacy
120 Notable Platformers of 2018
Exapunks dev creates 400-page behind-the-scenes design book
How Chinese Online Retailers Get Around Game Bans
See more or subscribe at: https://tinyletter.com/kliuless
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