This Week In The Business: Save Our Spines

QUOTE | “There was a time when spines were pulled out of players, and we don’t have to do that anymore.” – Veteran designer Sid Meier, explaining why he thinks game designers should create a “positive climate.”

Elsewhere in the business of video games this past week …

QUOTE | “I can absolutely say that we lost [player] trust in the game’s launch and the early parts of the year.” – DICE LA producer David Sirland, talking about the issues around the launch of Battlefield 4 and how he plans to do better.

QUOTE | “I think what we need to do is focus on heart first and money second. By the way, that’s a good business strategy.” – Owen Mahoney, CEO of Nexon, explaining how executives have done the gaming industry a disservice.

QUOTE | “Intel believes men and women should be treated the same… We apologise and we are deeply sorry if we offended anyone.” – Official statement from Intel after a backlash from the company pulling its ad support from Gamasutra due to #GamerGate complaints.

STAT | 34,000 — Number of TV commercials Candy Crush Saga publisher King Digital has run in the USA so far this year; this handily beats Microsoft’s 7,500 commercial airings and Sony’s 3,000 airings.

QUOTE | “We as an industry have reached a quality level now where it is getting increasingly more difficult to really wow people.” – Crytek rendering engineer Nicolas Schulz, acknowledging that graphics across the industry are getting better.

QUOTE | “The moral here isn’t that your brand needs to be part of your design early… it’s that brand and design are one in the same.” – Paul Murphy, co-founder and CEO of Dots, talking about building successful mobile games.

QUOTE | “A lot of studios have gone down… We have been resilient to that, and I think it’s because we never stand still.” – Will Musson of Ubisoft Reflections, the studio behind Driver, talking about how they have survived for 30 years.

STAT | 2.8 million — Number of copies of Super Smash Bros. for the 3DS sold worldwide in its first few weeks; Nintendo believes the Wii U version of the game, coming out November 21, will also be a big hit.

QUOTE | “We’ve got a 10-year head start or even a 20-year head start. We’re not like young pups out of the garage.” – Telltale CEO Dan Connors, explaining why Telltale’s emotional storytelling games have been successful.

STAT | $US12.2 billion — Amount of game company acquisitions for 2014 so far doubling the full year 2013 total; this year, acquisitions have been split evenly between China and the USA, with Microsoft’s $US2.5 billion purchase of Mojang in the lead.

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