This Week In The Business: That’s One Ugly Baby

QUOTE | “Everyone loves their baby, right? And you often have to tell them it’s kind of an ugly baby.” — Execution Labs’ Jason Della Rocca, talking about what it’s like to be evaluating games trying to be part of his company’s incubator program.

Elsewhere in the business of video games this past week …

QUOTE | “It becomes like slave labour and you don’t even own the intellectual property so you’re just grinding out until the next milestone.” — Brian Fargo, CEO of InXile, talking about what it’s like working on a publisher-funded game.

QUOTE | “You guys can see the same thing we see industry-wide, which is that there’s been sort of a secular downturn as it relates to preorders.” — Activision president Eric Hirshberg, talking to investment analysts about how to judge Destiny preorders (which are the highest of any new IP in the games industry).

QUOTE | “In fact, our graphics are really basic, and our gameplay is very basic. The fun is ‘oh, it was fun to meet my new group of friends.’” — Niantic Labs’ Brandon badger, talking about the Google Maps-based game Ingress and why it’s become popular.

STAT | 73 per cent — Amount of Activision’s revenues last quarter that came from digital distribution, including full downloads and content; Activision attributed that to the strength of World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, Diablo II and digital sales for Call of Duty.

QUOTE | “That transformation was painful. We paid the price. Now we come out of it much stronger.” — Cevat Yerli, CEO of Crytek, talking about how the company’s financial woes led to job losses and a PR crisis.

QUOTE | “The unfortunate reality is that BFG [Big Fish Games] omits informing its customers adequately about the monthly recurring fees, and BFG enrolls the vast majority of game purchasers into BFG’s membership program while failing to adequately inform them of this key fact.” — Statement from a class action lawsuit filed in Seattle by Big Fish Games customers seeking damages from the company.

QUOTE | “I feel like we have to move faster too because once you take VC funding you’re supposed to be rocketshipping it.” — Nix Hydra’s Lina Chen, talking about what the $US5.6 million in funding has meant to the company and its Egg Baby mobile game.

STAT | 34 per cent — Amount Zynga’s revenue dropped last quarter compared to the same quarter last year; the company also lowered its estimates for the full year after delaying key titles for “nurturing, refinement, and investment“.

QUOTE | “I’ve always been work-for-hire. And there are some things that can happen aesthetically that are maybe not as pleasing to your creative soul because you’re work-for-hire.” — Ex-Bungie composer Marty O’Donnell, talking about how the process of creating game music is changing.

STAT | 8 per cent — Percentage of mobile games in China that actually turn a profit, according to a report from Chinese regulatory agency SAPPRFT; games in China brought in over $US8.1 billion, with mobile accounting for $US2 billion.

Top image via Shutterstock