NBCUniversal is shutting down mobile publishing. By the end of the year, Comcast’s “daughter” will reduce the publishing team of Universal Brand Development.
There were about 50 people in the team. It has undergone restructuring, but it is not clear for sure how many people will leave. It is known that among them Chris Heatherly is the executive vice president for games and gaming platforms, who will leave the position by the end of the year. Some employees will be reassigned to other positions.
NBCUniversal has decided not to spend any more resources on the mobile edition to the detriment of other priorities. Previously, she published mobile games that were developed by partners under her own licenses. Now she will only license her IP, writes VentureBeat. This will allow her to earn money on the gaming market with less risks and lower costs.
Taking into account the increasingly competitive conditions in the mobile games market, Universal Brand Development will change its approach and start investing in projects that do not require mobile self-publishing. This will increase its licensing and partner opportunities on all gaming platforms. Together with our development partners, we are looking for alternative publishing ways for some of our mobile games.
Jurassic World: Evolution
Most likely, NBCUniversal’s decision is directly related to the poor results of game publishing.
While the licensees of the company successfully earn on the IP of the company (Jurassic World: Alive became a hit with an income of $ 60 million), the total monthly revenue of NBCUniversal itself from mobile gaming does not reach up to $ 100 thousand, according to DataMagic.
Among the games published by Universal Brand Development were Your Story Universe, Voltron: Cubes of Olkarion, etc. At the time of the restructuring, she had Payday: Crime War and Funko Pop in her soft launch! Blitz. The last two will probably find new publishers. What will become of the unnamed AAA game, which Universal Brand Development worked on together with a third-party publisher, is unknown.
Jurassic World: Evolution
NBCUniversal Media was formed in 2004 through the merger of NBC, Universal Studios and several other assets.
Universal Brand Development is its gaming division with IP licenses to Universal Pictures, Illumination and DreamWorks.
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