Games industry roundup: Mike Bithell talks John Wick Hex, Candy Crush founder discusses game's success, and Etheremon runs out of funds

• 1 PC game news and insights

  Here are the five hottest stories from our sister-site PCGamesInsider.biz for the last week.

  Why Lionsgate handed indie developer Bithell Games the John Wick IP

  Head honcho Mike Bithell tells us more.

  UKIE says UK government needs to support games industry as France launches campaign to attract companies to region

  'Our reputation can be eroded in a globally competitive industry. The emergence of a programme designed to poach talent and businesses from the UK should remind policymakers of this fact'.

  Investment house Gerber Kawasaki says Disney should buy Activision Blizzard - but who would be a good games fit for the House of Mouse?

  Following terrible experiences in the past, CEO Robert Iger says it prefers to license out its IP to games firms.

  Why Caged Element and Wired are supporting racing combat title Grip long after launch

  Wired Productions MD Leo Zullo takes us behind the scenes.

  RuneScape maker Jagex banned 587 player accounts during 2018

  "While we welcome hundreds of thousands into the games on a daily basis, we only issued permanent bans against 587 accounts for persistent abusive behaviour."

  
  

• 2 Mobile game news and insights

  Here are the five hottest stories from our sister-site PocketGamer.biz for the last week.

  Candy Crush co-founder thought title would be “dead” within six months

  "When it launched on Facebook no-one thought much of puzzle games, big-budget console games were seen as ‘the big games’ and casual games were something you didn't really talk about. Being part of that zeitgeist and making that happen has given it a permanence in people's minds," said Candy Crush co-founder Sebastian Knutsson.

  Nintendo Switch Online surpasses 10 million subscribers

  Nintendo has passed the milestone less than a year after the program was launched. It had previously passed 9.8 million members back in April.

  DJ Marshmello debuts Joytime III album in new mobile game

  American DJ Marshmello has partnered with developer Gamejam on a new mobile title called Marshmello Music Dance. The artist's new album Joytime III was available exclusively in the app for 24 hours before its public release.

  Brazil’s games industry has more than doubled in size in four years

  In 2014 the industry had 133 games companies, employing 1,133 staff. By 2018 this had more than doubled to 276 games companies employing 2,731 staff.

  Seven years on: How SYBO Games ran up 2.5 billion downloads for Subway Surfers

  We speak with SYBO Games CEO Mathias Gredal Nørvig about how the company has kept Subway Surfers one of the consistently most downloaded mobile titles over the last seven years.

  
  

• 3 Blockchain game news and insights

  Here are the five hottest stories from our sister-site BlockchainGamer.biz for the last week.

  Check out the latest teaser trailer from The Sandbox team

  Out of many of the blockchain game titles that are out there, The Sandbox has certainly made efforts to stand out. One of the ways is through the core mechanics of its gameplay – which places a special emphasis on content creation.

  Etheremon suspends any further updates as funds run dry

  The Etheremon team took to Medium over the course of last week to report on the current situation of the game. Having included a range of monetized mechanics such as its adventure modes, the team has since announced that has run out of funds.

  WAX’s full blockchain protocol and mainnet are now live

  The time has finally come for the Worldwide Asset eXchange, or WAX as we better know it. What we’re referring to exactly is the introduction of its full blockchain protocol and mainnet, which officially launched on June 30th.

  0xRacers – TRON dominates in pre-sale volume so far

  0xRacers, the fourth title from the 0xGames team, has already managed to make some impressive headway in its pre-sale. Having kicked off its sale across three blockchains on June 25th, looking at DappRadar, we can already see where player interest is coming from.

  CryptoThrone: Infinite World is due to launch on Ontology

  The blockchain-powered community and protocol – MixMarvel – along with the blockchain game service provider, TonArts, have come together to announce the upcoming launch of CyptoThrone: Infinite World.