VGC reports: “Originally introduced in May 2023, Epic Rewards lets players earn 5% back in Rewards any time they make a purchase on the Epic Games Store. Following its announcement that it had resubmitted Fortnite to Apple for inclusion in the iOS App Store, however, the publisher has announced a new incentive to encourage players to buy directly from Epic instead of through Apple’s own payment system.”
GamesBeat reports: “Aarki has launched Encore, a next-generation machine learning platform built to deliver full-funnel growth for mobile marketers in a privacy-first landscape. Designed for smarter user acquisition and stronger retention, Encore combines dynamic targeting, continuous model evolution, and SKAN 4-ready optimization.”
TechCrunch reports: “Google’s openly available Gemma collection of AI models has reached a milestone: over 150 million downloads. Omar Sanseviero, a developer relations engineer at Google DeepMind, announced the figure on X over the weekend, also revealing that developers have created more than 70,000 variants of Gemma on the AI dev platform Hugging Face.”
The Hollywood Reporter reports: “When Amazon takes the stage for its upfront presentation Monday evening, the company believes that it has an ace up its sleeve that will help its slate of live sports stand out from the rest: Because it’s all streaming, it can offer personalization, targeting and even shoppable ads at a scale that it thinks none of its competitors can match.”
Variety reports: “Here comes another start-up aiming to empower creators — and do an end run around traditional Hollywood studios. Shibuya, a crowdfunding streaming platform at shibuya.film, on Monday officially launched “Season One,” a collection of live-action and animated short films. The company, formed in 2022, is backed by a16z (Andreessen Horowitz), Variant Fund, Kevin Durant’s Thirty Five Ventures and Paris Hilton’s 11:11 Media.”
CNBC reports: “Fox Corp. will launch its direct-to-consumer streaming service, to be called Fox One, ahead of the National Football League season later this year. Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch unveiled the name and timing of the company’s upcoming streamer during a quarterly earnings call Monday. The exact launch date and pricing will be announced in the coming months.”
Broadband TV News reports: “Warner Bros Discovery’s first financial quarter presented a mixed bag with international markets pumping up subscriber numbers on streaming service Max. An additional 5.3 million subscribers were added on the quarter, take the installed base to 122.3 million at the end of the quarter. WBD is anticipating to have reached 150 million global subscribers by the end of 2026. Total revenues were $9.0 billion, a 9% decrease compared to Q1 2024.”
Deadline reports: “Quantify, a newly launched film sales and distribution company, is set to make its official debut at the 2025 Cannes Marché du Film, Deadline has learned. A collaboration among Nu Boyana Studios, Dark Matter Studios, Government Island, and Film Forge Media, Quantify is led by an experienced team specializing in theatrical and television projects, with a focus on helping filmmakers to deliver commercially viable product to global markets.”
GamesBeat reports: “The game industry’s motto for all of last year was “survive til 2025.” And in some respects, that wasn’t just wishful thinking. As the industry trudged through 2024, market researcher DDM saw positive signs. And with one quarter of 2025 in the books, it certainly seems that things are trending in the right direction when it comes to game deals — investments or M&A.”
Music Business Worldwide reports: “The integration of Big Tech and the entertainment industry has taken another step, this time with news that Google has launched a film and TV production company. Business Insider reported earlier this week that Google has quietly launched 100 Zeros, a film and TV production initiative that won’t be producing content for YouTube (a la YouTube Originals), instead offering it for sale to traditional studios and streaming services like Netflix.”
