“In general, the results do not show robust statistical evidence of displacement of sales by online copyright infringements. That does not necessarily mean that piracy has no effect but only that the statistical analysis does not prove with sufficient reliability that there is an effect.” — A European Commission report finds no proof that piracy of copyrighted games hurts legitimate sales.
QUOTE | “The PS3 emulator itself is not infringing on our copyrights and trademarks; however, no version of the P5 game should be playable on this platform; and [the RPCS3] developers are infringing on our IP by making such games playable.” — Atlus explains why it filed a DMCA takedown against a Patreon-funded open-source PS3 emulation project.
QUOTE | “We had two options. Either you tell people before the project ends and try and buy them as much time as possible to find new jobs, which makes the end of production really stressful for them, or you do the easier one for you as a business, which is you tell the people the day after you ship — oh, by the way… which is not an uncommon thing to happen.” — The Chinese Room’s Dan Pinchbeck explains why the studio told employees they were going to shut down with six weeks left in production on So Let Us Melt.
STAT | More than 30 — Volition developers reportedly laid off about a month after the studio’s latest title, Agents of Mayhem, launched to disappointing sales.
QUOTE | “I’m not entirely comfortable being the market leader in VR by such a margin that seems to be happening right now. With such a brand new category you want a variety of platforms all doing well to create that rising tide and create the audience.” — Sony’s Andrew House wishes the Rift and Vive were running a bit closer to PSVR in terms of market share.
QUOTE | “Now there’s all kinds of different companies getting involved and that’s good. It’s a small market now so all the companies should work together to grow the market and then they can all kill each other and stab each other once there’s more money to be made. It’s like a civilisation; you can’t have wars until you have multiple countries.” — Oculus founder Palmer Luckey gives all the partners in his new VR startup a good reason to watch their backs.
QUOTE | “I wish I could say that I was shocked that there is a new video game soon to be released called Dirty Chinese Restaurant.” — The opening line of US Representative Grace Meng’s call for platform-holders to wash their hands of a game suggests the industry has a significant image problem.
QUOTE | “This is an important advance in this critical industry space. We secured a number of gains including, for the first time, a secondary payment structure, which was one of the members’ key concerns.” — SAG-AFTRA president Gabrielle Carteris talks up a new deal for video game voice actors that will end the longest strike in the history of the Screen Actors Guild.
QUOTE | “The feedback you get at shows is almost always going to be positive, at least in our experience. So that can be a trap. People don’t really want to say too much about the game sometimes directly to the developers.” — Phantom Compass founder and Auto Age: Standoff developer Tony Walsh cautions devs not to take face-to-face feedback at face value.
QUOTE | “Do what you do best: make your game. Fix your bugs. But recognise the potential value in a few high-yield marketing actions, and make time for them. And if you can’t make time, then hire someone or work with a publisher to do the marketing for you. Marketing is essential.” — Fig CEO Justin Bailey offers developers some advice on maximizing the value of their game releases.
QUOTE | “We showed how strong we are in creativity, in conception, in game design, in all the artistic parts. For sure we cannot compete with the huge [Ubisoft] studios now, but we have really strong skills that can give us an advantage.” — Ubisoft Milan GM Dario Migliavacca said the success of Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle has changed the Italian studio’s fate.
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