This Week In The Business: Getting Harder

This Week In The Business: Getting Harder

“Holy fuck, it’s got harder.” — Developer Cliff Harris, who just launched Gratutitous Space Battles 2 on Steam, talking about the big difference between releasing a game in 2013 and releasing a game today.

Elsewhere in the business of video games this past week …

QUOTE | “The opportunity to create a $US1 billion annual mobile game franchise is real… We are in a market where the largest game franchise in the world is no longer on console, but rather on a mobile device.” — Kabam CEO Kevin Chou, talking in a blog post about why the company is doing fewer games and trying to make each bigger.

QUOTE | “I really wonder who the hell has time to do that.” — Industry consultant and former indie studio head Vlad Micu, talking along with other indies about the difficulty of doing social media while still trying to create games.

QUOTE | “The way we look at it is we take a niche, hardcore approach to things in terms of us valuing it and we try to translate that into something the mainstream could appreciate.” — Torn Banner founder and president Steve Piggott, explaining how the studio picks ideas for new games.

QUOTE | “We should have new exclusive IP at E3. I’m trying to make this E3 more about first party than past E3s.” — Xbox boss Phil Spencer, tweeting about how E3 this year will have a different focus than last year for Microsoft.

QUOTE | “[Streaming has] impacted us, I think, throughout the entire company; even how we market the game.” — Blizzard senior manager of eSports Kim Phan, talking about the increasing importance of eSports to Blizzard.

STAT | $US91.5 billion — Amount of total revenue worldwide expected from games in 2015, according to research firm Newzoo; this represents a 9.4 per cent growth over 2014, with China ($US22.2 billion) overtaking the US ($US22 billion) in total game revenues.

QUOTE | “The largest at-scale consumer market in tech right now is games… So the business models, the volume, the scale, and therefore the cold hard cash, is coming from games and certainly entertainment-related activities.” — Former Microsoft and Sony exec Phil Harrison, talking about his new startup company that’s doing something related to games.

STAT | 20 per cent — Amount that sales of the Xbox One declined in the last quarter versus the same quarter last year, according to Microsoft’s latest earnings report; the company shipped 1.6 million consoles this year versus 2 million consoles last year in the same quarter.

QUOTE | “The funny thing is it felt like I was bringing the violence conversation to the table because I have 20 years of scars and I’m from the game industry.” — Mark DeLoura, former senior advisor at the White House, talking about how the government’s interest in games has shifted to how they can help society.

QUOTE | “Oculus is very much in the development stage so it’s early to be talking about large shipment volumes.” — Facebook CFO David Wehner, explaining that Facebook’s projected operating expenses for the year don’t reflect a large amount for producing Oculus Rift VR headsets.

QUOTE | “I feel like I’m almost in danger of becoming an old-timer in the industry, so I’m excited to go visit some studios that are a little bit younger in the pipeline.” — Rob Pardo, former chief creative officer for Blizzard, talking about his upcoming role for Unity going around the world talking to developers.

Top image via Shutterstock


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