This Week In The Business: The Only Answer To Star Wars

“Star Wars is a thing that shaped my whole life. You get invited to join the team? There’s only one answer, ‘Yes.’” — EA Visceral creative lead Amy Hennig talks about the allure of Star Wars bringing her to work at EA.

Elsewhere in the business of gaming this week…

QUOTE | “Nintendo has always been like that, we are like indies.” — NES creator Masayuki Uemura talking about the indie spirit that drives people within Nintendo.

QUOTE | “I think as an indie these days, you have to be very happy if you can break even.” — Palringo’s Magnus Alm on the challenge in mobile and leveraging community to help with costs.

QUOTE | “I’d just like to take the time and say that we’re sorry. We’ve done a lot of things right in the past, but these past few weeks we screwed up.” — Almir Listo, Overkill’s global brand director, apologising for the controversial introduction of micro-transactions and pay-to-win mechanics to Payday 2.

STAT | 30 million — The number of units Sony has confirmed sold for PlayStation 4 during its first two years on the market, far outpacing competing consoles in the current generation.

QUOTE | “People are weird: the more traction a campaign appears to have, the more others feel the project is worth their time.” — Heart Shaped Games founder Scott Brodie outlines the tricks of the trade that fellow indie developers should employ when looking to launch Kickstarter campaigns.

STAT | $US5.5 billion — The worldwide digital game revenues in October according to SuperData, which reported that digital sales were up seven per cent year-over-year, driven in part by FIFA 16.

QUOTE | “We had high expectations that diminished somewhat as it got closer, and then it failed to hit those lowered expectations.” — GameStop COO Tony Bartel talking about the “slow start” the retailer dealt with for EA’s Star Wars: Battlefront; Halo and Assassin’s Creed also missed expectations.

QUOTE | “Will the Indian mobile games market provide safe shores from the Chinese cliffs?” — SuperData’s Joost van Dreunen discussing the huge growth potential for games in India and how it may be a safer bet for Western publishers than China.

QUOTE | “We’ve never done a thing before where negative players don’t have access to an entire system.” — Riot’s lead designer of social systems Jeffrey Lin explaining how Riot is locking out antisocial players from its new loot and crafting systems.

Image: Stefano Buttafoco / Shutterstock.com