This Week In The Business: Fear Of Gaming

QUOTE | “Our goal is keeping gaming a safe space for everyone to enjoy.” – Andrew Rasmussen, co-founder of GamePhobias, talking about their efforts to highlight content in games that might trigger fears in players.

Elsewhere in the business of video games this past week …

QUOTE | “If you’re in your comfort zone for too long, you’re declining or you’re dying.” — Unity CEO David Helgason, explaining why the tools vendor is pushing forward beyond game development into publishing, an ad network and more.

QUOTE | “I think the next generation of games is one where the best experiences will come when players are playing with their friends.” — Phoenix Labs’ Jesse Houston, talking about the new studio’s desire to focus on AAA multiplayer games.

QUOTE | “Talking about a game early is a double-edged sword, no doubt about it.” — Veteran designer Warren Spector, discussing with other developers about why games get revealed so early in development.

QUOTE | “Five or six years ago, there just wasn’t that mass market of independent developers. The world has changed, for the better — clearly.” — Epic Games’ European manager, Mike Gamble, talking about why the company has now gone to a $US19 a month subscription for its Unreal Engine 4 development tools.”

QUOTE | “We are asking the ITC to block shipments of Samsung Galaxy mobile phones and tablets containing Qualcomm’s Adreno, ARM’s Mali or Imagination’s PowerVR graphics architectures.” — Post on NVIDIA’s website, referencing the patent infringement lawsuit NVIDIA has filed against Samsung and Qualcomm.

QUOTE | “I see a strong future in 10-30 person teams building something with passion and focus, and then being accelerated by a company like Kabam.” — Executive producer John Young, talking about the new Kings of the Realm game Kabam is publishing.

STAT | $US200-$400 — Target price range for the consumer version of the Oculus Rift VR headset, according to Oculus; there’s still no release date, but the resolution will see a “significant increase” from 1080p and the refresh rate will jump to 90Hz or higher.

QUOTE | “Once a quarter we have what we call a Kabam Expo. It’s kind of an internal games fair where people can go and play the games, give feedback, meet the game makers… that’s probably one of the ways also to let loose with the employees as well, to help them stay a little sane.” — Kabam co-founder Holly Liu, talking about how Kabam’s culture is important to their game-making.

STAT | 70 per cent — Amount that iOS game revenue has risen in Q2 2014 compared to Q2 2013, according to analytics firm App Annie; Game revenue for handheld consoles fell 28 per cent over the same time period.”

Top image via Shutterstock