This Week In The Business: Pokemon Stop!

“Nobody gets sleep anymore. How is this acceptable? … they hang out on our lawns, trample landscaping, look in vehicles … we don’t feel safe … I don’t feel safe sitting on our porch.” – A lawsuit filed by a Detroit-area couple because Pokemon GO put Pokestops and gyms near their property and players had become a nuisance.

Photo via Shutterstock

Elsewhere in the business of gaming this week…

STAT | $US152 ($199) billion – The combined global market for augmented reality and virtual reality in 2020, according to an IDC report. The group said this year the technologies will account for just $US5.2 ($7) billion.

STAT | £50 – The price hike for the Oculus Rift when it arrives at UK retailers next month. When the Rift launch plans were detailed in January, the UK price was £499, but the currency has taken a beating since the Brexit vote to leave the European Union. For the headset’s retail debut next month, Oculus set a suggested retail price of £549.

QUOTE | “Our specific strategy is that we only talk about multiplayer going forward.” – Bossa Studios CEO Henrique Olifiers, explaining why its previous hits like Surgeon Simulator and I Am Bread don’t represent where the company wants to go in the future.

QUOTE | “One of the rewards was to help design a quest or name some item in the game, and some people never did.” – Crate founder Arthur Bruno, noting that some of the biggest backers of the Kickstarted action RPG Grim Dawn let their rewards go unclaimed.

QUOTE | “While it’s still early days for Twitch and Curse, we’re kindred spirits in many ways and are looking forward to working together to enhance our users’ gaming experience.” – Twitch CEO Emmet Shear on the company’s acquisition of voice chat company Curse.

QUOTE | “We don’t look at our players through the lens of who spends the most any more. What you want to look at is who’s most engaged.” – Kabam president of studios Aaron Loeb talks about the company’s focus on player retention over whale hunting.

QUOTE | “Our mission is to give people the power to discover, play and share the games they love with the people they care about.” – Facebook’s director of global games partnerships Leo Olebe, explaining why the social network is making a renewed push for games by partnering with Unity.

QUOTE | “At the end of the day, publishers have the same issue of finding great partners to work with and I don’t think that they care too much where that partner is as long as they’re great.” – Alejandro Gonzalez, co-founder and CEO of Colombian studio Brainz, emphasises the importance of what a studio can do over where it’s located.

STAT | 11,893 – The number of game development jobs in the UK, according to the trade group TIGA. That’s up 7.5% year-over-year.

QUOTE | “We’re going to be showing them the content which shows them where we’re going. We’re not going to tell them lies – our relationship is based on mutual trust, that’s part of the Early Access business model. All of our marketing efforts have to be about making them trust us.” – Zero Gravity biz dev guy Miroslav Micevic details the Belgrade-based indie’s strategy for alpha-funding its space-based survival game Hellion.