This Week In The Business: Backtracking, Flip-Flopping, And Other Changing Plans

“What’s changed is that there is proof in the market that people want it…” – EA Studios executive VP Patrick Soderlund on the company’s reversal when it comes to remastered re-releases of games. Less than a year ago, EA’s Peter Moore decried the practice as a sign companies had run out of ideas.

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Elsewhere in the business of gaming this week…

QUOTE | “The fact that movie industry hasn’t collapsed despite releasing box office numbers gives me faith that games industry will survive as well.” – Steam Spy founder Sergey Galyonkin explains why he will no longer comply with publisher requests to remove games from his website, which features data about how many people on Steam own individual titles.

QUOTE | “You start the project with certain assumptions of the market, and in four or five years’ time in this type of creative, technology-driven industry, it changes so fast.” – Remedy’s recently appointed CEO Tero Virtala explains why the company wants to move to shorter development cycles than it had on Alan Wake or Quantum Break.

STAT | 100 – The minimum number of Goodgame Studios employees that will be laid off due to the company’s withdrawal from the casual and non-broswer-based PC markets. Just a couple years ago, the company had been on a hiring spree, more than doubling its size in a year to 1,200 employees.

QUOTE | “It’s funny because I don’t know if there’s even that much money to be made right now in VR.” – Rick and Morty creator Justin Roiland explains how his love of VR led him to cofound VR studio Squanchtendo, perhaps against his better business interests.

STAT | 3.7% – The percentage of VR developers surveyed whose next game is being made for PlayStation VR, lower than Vive (34.6%), Rift (23.4%), Google Cardboard (14%), or Gear VR (10.3%). (The question did not allow for multiple platforms, and many respondents skipped the question entirely.)

QUOTE | “Luckey lacked the training, expertise, resources, or know-how to create commercially viable VR technology, his computer programming skills were rudimentary, and he relied on ZeniMax’s computer program code and games to demonstrate the prototype Rift.” – Zenimax takes a shot at Oculus founder Palmer Luckey in its lawsuit over the Rift headset.

STAT | 14% – The decrease in US digital and physical gaming revenues in July, according to the NPD Group. However, the 3DS and 2DS did well, which was attributed to a price drop and the launch of Monster Hunter Generations.

STAT | 10% – The increase in worldwide digital game revenues in July, according to Superdata. However, the 3DS did well, which was attributed to sales of older Pokemon titles receiving a boost from the Pokemon Go phenomenon.

STAT | $US300 ($397) million – The approximate lifetime revenues of Kabam’s mobile fighting game Marvel: Contest of Champions. Kabam CEO Kevin Chou said it’s on track to do $US1 ($1) billion over its lifetime. The game was made for less than $US10 ($13) million.

QUOTE | “To be honest, when I go to GDC, I’m like, where are all the women at?” – Zynga GM Nicole Opas, lamenting the relative rarity of women in game development. Opas is leading up the creation of FarmVille: Tropic Escape.

STAT | 50% – The portion of featured competitors from the Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games franchise that were featured at the actual Olympic Games.