Gaming
Outright Games hires former CFO of Natural Motion and launches mobile division
Following a record year of financial growth, the U.K. based games publisher has made key hires at a senior level across finance, HR and production departments and launches the mobile division that will compliment Outright’s portfolio of major kids licensors.
Outright Games, the leading global publisher of kids interactive entertainment today, has announced six new executive hires across the business following on from news about their record 75% year on year financial growth in 2020.
The U.K. based, family-owned video games publisher, has announced the addition of Adam Whittaker, who joins Outright Games as its Chief Financial Officer. This move follows his 11 year tenure at NaturalMotion Games where he grew the company through to the sale to Zynga and continued as part of the senior leadership team for 3 years. Adam brings in-depth knowledge both in scaling tech companies, and in particular mobile games, having launched 14 #1 grossing titles. With Outright Games recording record revenue in 2020, Adam takes responsibility for all financial aspects of the company going forward.
Jon Bishop also joins as Head of Mobile Games to lead the rapidly growing mobile division at Outright Games, as the company looks to bring the most popular IPs in kids entertainment to smart phones and tablets across the globe. Jon brings over 20 years experience in the tech industry, across a range of marketing, gaming and business management roles at Paypal, Funding Circle and Coda Platform. As Head of Mobile Games he will oversee the development and growth of the entire mobile games division, as Outright Games uses its extensive roster of top licensors to become the leading publisher of kids games on mobile.
As the company continues to grow at scale, Mel Kent is appointed as Head of People, with 15 years experience in legal and compliance roles. With a 36% increase in personnel over the past 12 months, Mel is responsible for recruitment, HR, compliance, as well as developing a supportive culture for the fast growing team.
Outright Games is looking to triple their total existing portfolio of 18 titles by the end of 2022, and to meet this goal the company continues to build its production team, with three new hires across the department. Nick Ricks joins as Creative Director, Loz Doyle as Executive Producer, and Chris Rose as Senior Producer all having previously worked at TT Games with decades of experience in the kids’ games market shared between them.
Nick Ricks, Creative Director comments on the new role: “I’ve worked with inspiring and inventive teams, along with some of the world’s biggest IPs for 24 years in both creative and production roles. From small indie studios to global publishers, and across multiple platforms and genres, the thrill of creating unforgettable gaming experiences has always driven me, and is why I’m so excited for this new adventure here at Outright Games.”
Outright Games was established in 2016 by Terry Malham, Terry Malham-Wallis and Stephanie Malham, and is the market leader in publishing top quality licensed kids games from the biggest franchises in entertainment including Jumanji, Transformers, PAW Patrol, Ben 10, How to Train Your Dragon and Adventure Time. After opening offices in Los Angeles, London and Madrid over the past 3 years, Outright Games currently has over 30 projects in development, and is set for another blockbuster year.
This month Outright Games announced record financial growth in 2020. In Q4 alone, they generated £22 million in revenue, an increase of 75% from the same time in the previous year.
Additional Quotes:
“Outright Games has been a pillar in the kids video game sector for years now, and I’m excited to join the team at this pivotal stage of the company’s growth. The industry has gone from strength-to-strength over the past year, and we continue to set the standard for top-quality licensed games for children. I wish I could say I’m more excited than my kids to work on some of these incredible franchises, but that wouldn’t be true!” Adam Whittaker, CFO, Outright Games
“The mobile games industry has been crying out for a trusted brand to bring quality, licensed content to kids. With so much experience and credibility in this space, we are uniquely positioned to lead the production of safe, reputable and high-quality mobile games with some of the biggest names in entertainment. This year alone we are set to reveal a host of exciting new titles, and I can’t wait for what lies ahead of us.” Jon Bishop, Head of Mobile, Outright Games
“It has been incredible to see our growth over the past year, and to welcome so many talented new faces into the business. We’re well on track for another record breaking year, and the team we have built continues to go from strength to strength.” Stephanie Malham, COO, Outright Games
Bitcoin
Bitcoin Miner celebrates two years of hugely successful collaboration with ZBD
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.”
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.
Gaming
UK Gaming Charity SpecialEffect to Receive Special Award at 20th BAFTA Games Awards
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.
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.
Gaming
The Rocket League Championship Series Major 2 Heads Back to Copper Box Arena in London This June
The Rocket League Championship Series (RLCS) returns to Copper Box Arena in London, UK for the second Major of 2024 from June 20-23.
Copper Box Arena hosted a sold out RLCS Spring Major in 2022 and saw Team Vitality defeat Team BDS in the final. The venue will again play host to the world’s best Rocket League players as they compete for the second trophy of 2024, a chance to win the lion’s share of a $255,000 in total prize pool winnings and earn additional RLCS points to secure a spot in the Rocket League World Championship in September.
The RLCS Major 2 will be broadcast on Twitch and YouTube from June 20-21, and welcome a live audience in the Copper Box Arena for the weekend competition on June 22-23. Tickets go on general sale beginning at 10:00 AM GMT on Friday, March 29, and the direct link to purchase tickets can be found on the Rocket League esports social accounts. There are three presale windows for O2 Priority customers, Live Nation users and Ticketmaster users.
BLAST and Rocket League esports have teamed up with Live Nation, one of the world’s largest live entertainment companies to help support and promote the RLCS Major 2 coming to London in June 2024.
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