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Playstack and Laser Dog Games Join Hands to Open a New Micro-studio

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Playstack and Laser Dog Games have come together to launch a new Leeds-based micro-studio, Playstack Leeds, in an exciting collaboration. The new micro-studio brings award-winning Laser Dog Games’ developers, Simon Renshaw and Rob Allison, into the fold at leading publisher Playstack, reigniting a previous partnership to launch a new independent development wing that will create a catalogue of charming and fun new games.

The prestigious Laser Dog Games has seen its titles enjoyed by millions since the studio was founded by Simon and Rob in 2012. The pair had an instant bond when they met. They quickly found their skills complemented each other perfectly, deciding to build a studio with Rob as programmer and composer and Simon as artist and game designer. After a year of making games in their spare time around day jobs, they finally got their big break with debut Alone and made the decision to devote themselves to Laser Dog full time.

Simon and Rob’s skills in creating stunning art and catchy music, engaging gameplay and innovative coding, led to the development of many successful titles including PKTBALL, Don’t Grind and HoPiKo. Renowned for their charming style, the talented pair have won numerous accolades, including the iTunes Editors Choice Worldwide (PKTBLL), the iTunes Indie Game Showcase (Alone) and the Editors’ Choice on the Apple App store (Ava Airborne).

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Headquartered in London, Playstack is a leading video games publisher partnering with external and internal studios to deliver a stack of games people want to play, priding itself on packing as much fun as possible into its titles. A previous successful collaboration with Laser Dog in 2017 led to the release of Ava Airbourne and 2 Grind 2 Furious, which have had over an incredible 13.5 million downloads to date.

Harvey Elliott, CEO of Playstack, said: “We’re so happy to welcome Rob and Simon to Playstack as full-time members of our team, and delighted to launch our first micro-studio Playstack Leeds. One of our core goals is to enable developers to focus on their passion for creating great games. Simon and Rob have already brought their boundless energy to Playstack showing a passion for creating, crafting, and shaping a new wave of games for our line-up. They bring so much joy to players and we cannot wait to work with them more and more.”

Under the umbrella of Playstack Leeds, Simon and Rob will focus on making great entertaining titles using beautiful art styles, with Playstack providing expertise in a host of tools and services, including monetisation, UA services, QA, and data analysis. Together they will work on captivating and quirky IPs.

Simon and Rob, founders of Laser Dog, said: “Before we met Playstack, we were finding it difficult to focus on doing what we truly love, developing unique and quirky fun games. There are only two of us at Laser Dog and we found the day-to-day of running a studio a bit overwhelming, but with Playstack’s help, now we have the freedom to spend our time on creating the games we want to make.”

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Bitcoin

Bitcoin Miner celebrates two years of hugely successful collaboration with ZBD

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Bitcoin Miner, the world’s number one Bitcoin game, is celebrating two years of its collaboration with ZBD, a leading fintech company powering digital economies for gamers and developers. Since the partnership began, Bitcoin Miner has gone from a forgotten title with no players to becoming one of the largest play-and-earn games ever, with over 2 million lifetime users.

ZBD’s Lightning-powered payments technology enables developers to inject instant rewards into their games to boost retention and community engagement. Fumb Games, the studio behind Bitcoin Miner, partnered with ZBD in March 2022 to help revive its flagship title, enabling it to reward players with fragments of Bitcoin for playing the game as normal. From the outset, the integration of ZBD’s tech had a marked impact, leading to a 12x boost in 30-day retention. Two years on, Bitcoin Miner is achieving 40,000 daily active users, making it the biggest Bitcoin game by user count.

Besides the retention benefit of rewards, which leads to player retention that exceeds 6 months, the success of Bitcoin Miner has also been fueled by community-based features such as regular live events. The majority of Bitcoin Miner players are US-based millennial males who enjoy engaging with gaming communities, with weekly events leading to a 20% increase in revenue. As well as its own community of engaged players, Bitcoin Miner benefits from the ZBD app user base of more than a million gamers.

Paul West, Founder of Fumb Games, said “Bitcoin Miner has proven that US players love games that are fun, snackable and rewarding. The  game is not only sustainable, but has soared to new heights since the partnership with ZBD. It’s no surprise that I’m very excited for the future of bitcoin and player-friendly rewarded games.”

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Ben Cousens, Chief Strategy Officer at ZBD, said “The two-year collaboration with Paul and Fumb Games on Bitcoin Miner has been a quintessential success story for what we’re building at ZBD. It proves the value in offering rewards for gamers and the success of ZBD’s rewards and payments tech at making it possible at speed and scale. We will no doubt see further impressive numbers for Bitcoin Miner that cement its status as world’s number one Bitcoin game, and we also look forward to extending the potential benefits of Bitcoin rewards to more developers.”

In November 2023, Fumb Games also integrated ZBD’s technology in its idle tycoon RPG SpaceY. ZBD works with more than 100 game developers worldwide, including major brands such as Square Enix, and is also used by innovative adtech companies like Slice and AdInMo.

The post Bitcoin Miner celebrates two years of hugely successful collaboration with ZBD appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.

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Gaming

UK Gaming Charity SpecialEffect to Receive Special Award at 20th BAFTA Games Awards

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BAFTA has announced that UK gaming charity SpecialEffect, will receive the prestigious Special Award at the 20th BAFTA Games Awards. The award, which recognises outstanding contributions to games, film and television, is one of the highest accolades bestowed by BAFTA. Dr Mick Donegan MBE, founder and CEO of SpecialEffect, will pick up the Special Award at the annual BAFTA Games Awards ceremony on Thursday 11 April.

In 2007, Mick Donegan founded SpecialEffect to help people with even the most severe physical challenges to access video games. The organisation uses specialised technology to enhance access to video games and creative self-expression for people with a wide range of Disabilities.

SpecialEffect’s success began as a result of the collaboration between Mick, a specialist in assistive technology and his son Bill, a keen gamer with a background in product design. Since its creation, the charity has grown to thirty employees, raising all their own funds, and has provided specialist one-to-one assessments and support to severely disabled people throughout the UK and beyond.

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Dr Mick Donegan MBE, SpecialEffect founder and CEO, said: “With a background in special education, I realised how much people with severe physical disabilities were missing out by not being able to play. I started SpecialEffect not only to help individuals to play video games but also to collaborate with the games industry to make their games more accessible ‘at source’. Since then, we have been privileged to be invited to share our ideas with more and more developers all over the world. Now, 17 years since SpecialEffect began, it’s an absolute honour for SpecialEffect’s work to be recognised by BAFTA.”

Emma Baehr, BAFTA executive director of awards and content, said: “SpecialEffect’s work is essential to the games world and is hugely deserving of a BAFTA Special Award. Their innovative and supportive approach to making games accessible drives progress within the industry, collaborating with developers and studios on new technologies to make games within reach to more people. We look forward to honouring their contribution to games at the ceremony on Thursday 11 April.”

Throughout the years, SpecialEffect has been involved in collaborating with Xbox, Sony and Logitech, to help design accessible controllers and a switch kit, enabling thousands more severely disabled players to access their games using a wide range of control devices. They have also worked with games studios and developers to help make their games more accessible. The organisation also developed EyeMine, a freely downloadable gaze-controlled interface to enable players to enjoy Minecraft through gaze-control alone.

Later this year will see the rollout of their EyeGaze Games (currently available on PC only) onto Android and iOS, games designed to be fully accessible for people with physical disabilities, whether they use gaze control, joysticks, switches or gamepads.

The post UK Gaming Charity SpecialEffect to Receive Special Award at 20th BAFTA Games Awards appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.

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DPS

Industry heavyweights all set for biggest ever Indian Gaming Tradeshow

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This year’s Indian Gaming Tradeshow, featuring the Digital Play Summit (DPS), will showcase more of the industry’s most high-profile operators than ever before, alongside a formidable line-up of its major providers.

Stand-out performers like iGT, Everi, Konami, Playtech, Chalkline, Continent 8, and GBank, as well as other stakeholders such as DraftKings and Fanduel, will be exhibiting at the Anaheim Convention Center, California, from April 8-11.

For the first time the 2024 event will also demonstrate tribal gaming’s adherence to player protection with the launch of a Sustainable Gambling Zone (SGZ).

The SGZ will be a focal point for collaboration where companies can discuss best practices, learn about the latest research and discover innovations in the area of harm prevention and long-term business and industry sustainability.

Presented as a physical area on the DPS show floor, it will feature kiosks where organizations committed to responsible gambling and players’ health will exhibit their services, products and tools.

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The SGZ is supported by IGT and endorsed by the National Council on Problem Gambling, Massachusetts Council on Gaming and Health and The International Center for Responsible Gaming who were also among the first groups to confirm their presence with a kiosk.

The initiative, previously known as the Consumer Protection Zone at ICE London but unique for a North American gaming event, invites other organizations that put responsible gambling at the core of their practice to show their support.

Further exhibitors, sponsors and supporters of this key event in the industry calendar are expected in the next two weeks, all set to explore the incredible opportunities for growth in tribal gaming.

Ernie Stevens, Jr, Indian Gaming Association Chairman, said: “We’re delighted to have compiled such an expansive list of exhibitors as our stakeholders play a vital role in moving this industry forward, and positive progression is at the core of everything we do at the IGA.

“A key part of that is everybody working sustainably and progressively. The Sustainable Gambling Zone at Digital Play Summit is the perfect vehicle for that message and is a fantastic initiative.

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“We’re excited to welcome exhibitors and visitors new and time-served to Anaheim to discover more of what we stand for and how working Indian country offers the opportunity to reap tangible rewards.”

Registration for the DigitalPlay Summit is included in all conference and tradeshow registration packages for the Indian Gaming Tradeshow & Convention.

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