10/08/2021 Hot Five: More Embracer acquisitions, a Louis Vuitton NFT mobile game and Tencent stock plummets

The hottest articles of last week

Matthew Forde

To help you keep on top of a busy news cycle and the latest hot topics in mobile gaming, each week we round up the five most-read stories on PocketGamer.biz.

Read on and digest…

NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal signs $11M Astrals NFT settlement
OpenSea users drop securities suit, Whales drive Q3 NFT comeback: Nifty Newsletter
Crypto fan tokens a mixed bag for game-deprived soccer fans

1. Louis Vuitton launching NFT mobile game in August

French fashion brand Louis Vuitton is launching a mobile game with NFTs.

Launched on August 4th, 2021 for iOS and Android devices, Louis: The Game will be part of the company's celebrations for the 200th anniversary of its founder's birth.

2. Embracer makes eight acquisitions, including CrazyLabs

Swedish games publisher Embracer Group has purchased eight new companies, including mobile developer CrazyLabs.

The purchases totalled $315 million making it Embracer’s third-largest purchase this year.

3. Spanish casual startup Unusuall raises $3.6 million, led by Garena

Spanish startup Unusuall has raised $3.6 million (€3 million) in seed funding, which was led by Free Fire publisher Garena.

Unusuall's goal is to create casual mobile games with more social and more exciting experiences.

4. CrazyLabs acquires Firescore Interactive to boost Indian hypercasual ecosystem

Hypercasual publisher CrazyLabs has acquired Indian developer Firescore Interactive,

Founded in August 2018 by Karan Khairajani and Surojit Roy, the Mumbai-based developer has seen its mobile games generate over 200 million downloads.

5. Tencent stock falls by $60 billion following criticism from state media

Tencent has revealed that it will rein in accessibility options it has implemented for minors, following criticism from a state media article that saw $60 billion knocked off the company's valuation.

Following the publishing of the article, Tencent’s share price fell more than 10 per cent - plummeting the Chinese tech giant's stock by almost $60 billion.

The Mobile Games Developer Trends Survey is back for 2021, in association with AdInMo.

As a thank you for participating, we will give five lucky winners a free ticket to Pocket Gamer Connects Digital #8 and the first 100 participants will receive an exclusive 30% discount too. 

Complete the survey here to be in with a chance of winning and help shape our industry trends report to be published later in the year.
Arts

https://www.pocketgamer.biz/hot-five/77012/hot-five-more-embracer-acquisitions-a-louis-vuitton-nft-mobile-game-and-tencent-stock-plummets/

Interesting NFTs
Brave Samurai
This is the second collaborative piece that I have created with the very talented Dutch artist, @eattheart23. Here, a samurai warrior stands guard, honour bound to protect his master even to the death.
2.0
2.0
Entropic Embrace (Headpiece)
I) Of the Primordial Raiments, the Entropic Embrace was the first to be created by Khaank, disciple of the great Zafra. The techniques used for its creation are as lost to us as Khaank himself.
Verifactory
The factory process behind the making of a verification badge. 10-second loop, 30 fps. Created using Cinema4D, X-Particles, TurbulenceFD, Redshift, and After Effects.
The Harvest
An anthropomorphic figure stands, wide eyed, staring at the viewer; its body masculine, muscular, and humanoid. Its “mind” dissociates into a conglomerate of structures resembling feathers, grain, teeth–as well as a radial flower “node”, casting linear rays throughout the composition. To his left, a vat of bodies gesture and writhe in a kind of amniotic soup, attended by a video game robot. The bot's red display reads “uWu”. Behind the robot and filling the left side of the composition is an archaic figure composed of a variety of vintage objects and symbols. Among them are a hardbound book with ancient cuneiform scripts, indicating barley, beer, bread, ox, house, and sky, behind which is a grimacing, salivating jagged toothed maw; and an old Commodore floppy drive. The figure’s head tilts toward an illuminated crescent moon, suggesting the Egyptian Sacred Bull. The archaic figure is composed of a variety of mutating cells, which shift in color, and pattern; eventually breaking free into an ephemeral broadcast of bubbles which move across the background. The work came into being against a psychological introspection, which included associations to pop culture such as alien abduction and pod people, as well as quite a bit of reflection on grains as a symbol of civilization, agriculture, sustenance, life, and imbibing (mainly whiskies).