Business
Koch Media Officially Rebrands as Plaion
Koch Media has officially rebranded under their new moniker; Plaion.
Managing managing director Klemens Kundratitz spoke at length about the changes, while emphasizing that the games publisher will remain “first and foremost a games company” while adding that the rebrand will “acknowledge who we truly are”.
“But the more we thought about it, the more we wanted to go all the way,” Kundratitz said, during an interview with GamesIndustry.Biz. “It’s more impactful, it’s got an external statement but it’s also an internal statement to our people. We’re opening this new chapter, they’re part of this, we’re a modern, growing, ambitious, global company, and it’s energising people internally.
“Obviously, we want to avoid people seeing this as window dressing. The signal we’re sending is that we’re on a journey and it’s good to give this journey a new name, new visual appearance. New is always exciting.”
“We have made such an enormous transformation since we joined the Embracer Group,” he continued. “Our name for so many years was associated with physical distribution, perhaps with us being more of a central European company – although including the UK because that was among the first three countries where we launched. But we’re perhaps not seen as a global company. And it’s sometimes difficult for some people to pronounce.”
“We’re not mutating into a different company, we’re just following a path that we’ve already been on since becoming part of Embracer Group. We’re growing in all areas. It’s certainly not a departure from physical distribution. Our mantra is we want to offer games wherever and however people want to play them: physical, digital, collector’s editions. Whatever way people want to consume our content, we’re there. We’re long-term committed in the physical space, but equally we need to reinvent ourselves all the time.”
“We’re a very transformed company and we have an ambition on a global scale to continue to grow, both on the content creation side and the sales side, as well as diversifying into different forms of entertainment. We’re ready to give ourselves a new look, a new style, and open a new chapter.”
The re-branding also applies to Koch Film, which will now be known as Plaion Pictures, which is a fresh approach for the world of film content creators, such as horror content creators and others within the film industry.
“Koch has always been a B2B brand and it will continue to be,” Kundratitz said. “All our consumer-facing publishing labels – Deep Silver, Prime Matter, Ravenscourt, Milestone and Vertigo Games – will stay the same. I think it’s easier to transition from Koch to Plaion in a B2B environment.”
Content creation platform Patreon has officially tabbed Adiya Taylor as their new corporate communications lead, effective in February, according to an official announcement.
Taylor worked for Amazon’s video game streaming platform Twitch for three years in a variety of roles, most recently serving as the company’s senior monetization communications manager prior to her departure.
Taylor’s hiring comes after Patreon brought on Brielle Villablanca as Vice President of communications and creator advocacy back in November 2023.
“I’m thrilled to begin crafting and implementing a communications strategy around policy, trust and safety, product and more,” Taylor said during an official post on the networking platform LinkedIn, adding that she believes Patreon is a “true advocate” for creators.
“I’m looking forward to more storytelling around how we’re fostering fandom so that creators own long-lasting businesses built around their artistry,” Taylor added.
Microsoft has responded to recent reports that there will be changes to it’s first-party strategy and has confirmed that four game titles will be released on rival consoles.
More specifically, Xbox head Phil Spencer said that ‘Starfield’ and ‘Indiana Jones’ will not be among the four titles heading to other platforms. Both games had a number of candidate platforms, per reports, adding that this is “not a change to our fundamental exclusive strategy.”
“We don’t damage Xbox and we can grow our business using what other platforms have to help us with that,” Spencer said, according to GamesIndustry.biz. “Looking forward, I think there is an interesting story for us of introducing Xbox franchises to players on other platforms to get them more interested in Xbox. We think there’s a good brand value for Xbox there.”
Xbox president Sarah Bond announced that Activision Blizzard games would begin to be added into Game Pass offerings, starting with Diablo 4, which will be added on March 28th.
Additionally, Bond said that Microsoft is still working on hardware for the future and that their focus regarding the future is “delivering the largest technical leap you will ever have seen in a hardware generation.”
Sega Sammy has released its financial report for the nine-month period that officially concluded on December 31st, 2023, and that report that demonstrated a rise in overall sales and profit despite a decrease in sales for Sega’s new titles.
That decline was offset by growth in pachislot and pachinko machines, however Sega had lowered its sales forecasts for the full financial year.
Here is a breakdown, courtesy of GamesIndustry.biz.
- Net sales: ¥349.9 billion ($2.3 billion, up 28.7% year-on-year)
- Operating income: ¥54.4 billion ($364 million, up 42.4% year-on-year)
- Ordinary income: ¥57.2 billion ($383 million, up 42.7% year-on-year)
- Net sales were up 130.3% to ¥120.2 billion ($805 million) in this segment
- Ordinary income increased by 521.3% at ¥45.7 billion ($306 million).
- Entertainment Contents segment, which includes video games, net sales were up 4.2% at ¥219.3 billion
- Profit decreased by 52.5% to ¥19.7 billion ($131.8 million) as a result of weak game sales
You can read a breakdown of the entire report at GamesIndustry.biz here.
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