TheGamingEconomy’s Daily Digest brings you the prevalent business stories in gaming. In today’s news: Cloud gaming to reach USD$56.57bn (£48.80bn) by 2027; DreamCraft raises USD$3m (£2.6m); and Google Stadia partners with Unity.

Cloud gaming to reach USD$56.57bn by 2027

The global cloud gaming market is forecast to reach USD$56.57bn (£48.80bn) by 2027, representing a CAGR from 2018 of 15.7%, according to estimates from Fortune Business Insights. Several factors have been cited as drivers towards this growth, including the increased adoption of online gaming; integration of AR and VR technologies; the move towards 5G connectivity; and entry of major corporations such as Microsoft, Google, and Tencent.

The report summary reads, "In the gaming industry, the introduction of cloud-based gaming will change the gaming landscape in a few years. Improvements in internet infrastructure will enable high-speed network connectivity to deliver cloud based services. Furthermore, rising internet penetration and adoption of upcoming 5G technology projected to bring opportunities for the market in the future[...] Few of the players are investing in this opportunistic market and developing their online gaming platform, which include Microsoft Corporation, Google LLC, Tencent, Amazon.com, Inc., and others. Moreover, telecom service providers have an opportunity in this market and compete with the existing players of the market."

DreamCraft raises USD$3m (£2.6m)

Game creation and monetisation platform DreamCraft Entertainment Inc. has raised USD$3m (£2.6m) in a seed round led by Makers Fund, with a supporting contribution from Ludlow Ventures. The funding will be used to assist the creation of the platform, which will aid in the development, publishing, and monetisation, of titles created by developers with minimal coding experience and resources, in return for a share in revenue of such titles.

Principal investor Makers Fund has been notably active in video games platform funding in recent months, having led or contributed towards rounds in social platform VRChat (USD$10m/£8.6m, September 2019), 'game clipping' service Medal (USD$3.5m/£2.7m, February 2019), and mobile gaming social platform Rune (USD$2m/£1.6m, October 2019).

DreamCraft was founded in 2018 by Tianyin Zhang (former Bloomberg and Google engineer) and Veronica Yao (former Electronic Arts engineer) through the Y Combinator accelerator programme, and operates out of San Mateo, California. Previous investors include Kevin Lin (co-founder of Twitch) and Sterling VC.

Google Stadia partners with Unity

Google has announced a partnership with Unity Technologies which will see the launch of a new developer initiative, termed Stadia Makers, which will provide technical and financial assistance to studios wanting to self-publish titles created using the Unity engine on the Stadia cloud gaming platform.

Announcing the partnership, a Google spokesperson commented on the difficult launch of the Stadia platform, which saw criticism over the lack of titles available when it debuted last year. "The fact of the matter is that far more studios applied to be a part of our launch than we could work with at the time. Thank you for your ambition, patience, and support that those applications represent. Now that we’re a few months down the road, we’ve improved our tools and built new partnerships that will let us work with more independent studios."