What’s happened in the business of video games this past week …
QUOTE | “[Next Xbox] will be a very hot, compelling device … I think the world is going to stand up and take notice.” — GameStop CEO J. Paul Raines, talking about the as-yet-unofficial new console from Microsoft rumoured to be coming out this year.
QUOTE | “As cool as triple-A games are, the time and money that go into them now is just soul-crushing.” — Warren Spector, designer of Deus Ex and Epic Mickey, talking about leaving Disney and his desire to work on smaller teams.
QUOTE | “There is a general belief that games with female characters won’t sell as well.” — Jade Raymond, managing director of Ubisoft Toronto, talking about how the audience for games still needs to mature.
STAT | $US1 — Annual salary that Zynga’s CEO Mark Pincus will be taking home now after a difficult last year year; he has also asked to be exempted from the company’s bonus program and equity awards.
QUOTE | “There really aren’t issues around monetisation, whether it’s too aggressive or ads are too in-your-face. Everything works.” — John Coligan, Konami director of digital publishing, saying that he doesn’t hear complaints from gamers abut free-to-play games.
QUOTE | “I never felt that real ultra-hardcore are all going to end up playing mobile games.” — Ben Cousins, head of DeNA’s studio working on a tablet FPS game, talking about how mobile games won’t replace console games.
QUOTE | “We don’t want to be pay-to-win.” — Meteor Entertainment producer Paul Loynd, talking about how the company is careful to keep free-to-play mech game Hawken competitive for all players.
STAT | 10 million — Number of units of Minecraft sold for the PC to date; the game has sold more than 15 million units for all platforms as of the end of 2012.
QUOTE | “Ultimately the numbers would show that they all support the freemium model better.” — EA mobile head Nick Earl, talking about how EA will focus on free-to-play mobile games even though a “vocal minority” despises those games.
QUOTE | “It’s very rare that companies positioned in an old model are able to transition to a new model and survive.” — EA Labels president Frank Gibeau, talking about how he’s proud of where EA is at right now.
This Week in the Business courtesy of GamesIndustry International.
Image by Shutterstock.
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