TheGamingEconomy’s Daily Digest brings you the trending stories in gaming. In today’s news: Monolith Soft doubles year-on-year profit, opens new studio; Fiverr launches ‘industry store’ for gaming services; and Ubisoft criticised for sourcing music through HitRecord.

Monolith Soft doubles year-on-year profit, opens new studio

Nintendo subsidiary Monolith Soft has announced that it has opened a new studio in Osaki, Tokyo, following a year in which the developer saw its profits almost double from JP¥138m (£1.02m) to JP¥274m (£2.02m).

Originally founded in 1999 as a subsidiary of Namco, the firm is known for supporting Nintendo on some of its major titles, including Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and Splatoon 2. The subsidiary is also known to be working on a new title in the Legend of Zelda franchise, having previously worked on 2017’s Breath of the Wild.

Fiverr launches ‘industry store’ for gaming services

Freelancing platform Fiverr has launched an ‘industry store’ for gaming services, using a similar economy model employed by companies such as Uber and Deliveroo. Digital services available at launch include game development, QA, scriptwriting and composing.

While offering agencies and workers flexibility, Fiverr, along with other gig economy firms has previously garnered criticism for how their model artificially deflates freelancer wages, whilst denying them benefits such as healthcare, pension, and sick pay.

In an interview with Newsweek, Marijam Didžgalvytė, head of internal communications of Game Workers Unite said, “When the market dictates how much a person's value is worth, contractors are encouraged to compete against each other and undervalue their work.”

Ubisoft criticised for sourcing music through HitRecord

Ubisoft has announced a partnership with ‘collaborative creativity platform’ HitRecord, founded by actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt, to source ten songs for the upcoming Watch Dogs Legion title. Under the project fans can submit their work using the platform, with a fee of USD$2000 (£1596) paid to selected contributions.

The move has attracted sharp criticism from a range of composers and game developers, who have claimed the speculative work model to be ‘exploitative’, particularly given the AAA status of the title, produced by a company which grossed USD$2.03bn (£1.82bn) last year.

BAFTA-nominated composer Ryan Ike was particularly scathing of his criticism, stating on Twitter: “This is spec work and exploitative as hell. This model, where you give someone your time and skill and MIGHT be chosen (and if you are, you're underpaid at best) needs to die out immediately”