QUOTE | “My highlight of 2017 was Breath of the Wild – what an incredible experience! The feeling of absolute freedom in BotW is beyond any other game I’ve seen, and the design of the world is so well done. I’m very happy to see my belief in Nintendo, and great game design, is once again proven to be a huge success.” – Original Doom designer John Romero joins a number of industry luminaries in sharing his highlights of the past year.
QUOTE | “You can clearly see there’s a strong vision that drives everything in a single direction, making a strong statement. This is for me the true essence of authorial game design.” – Ovosonico founder Massimo Guarini (Last Day of June, Shadows of the Damned) is still amazed by the classic PS2 action game ICO.
QUOTE | “It is also important that this reform benefit our industry’s 220,000 employees and millions of customers, and put our nation on a path to long-term economic prosperity.” – The Entertainment Software Association praises the Republican tax reform bill which just passed Congress and permanently cuts the corporate tax rate from as high as 35% down to a flat 21% while adding $US1.5 ($2) trillion to the deficit over the next decade.
QUOTE | “As we’re discovering, there are certain tenuous aspects to this existence where two-thirds of your income may vanish overnight depending on how certain businesses operate and whether they continue to exist.” – Dwarf Fortress designer Tarn Adams talks about the realities of fan-supported development after Patreon threatened to raise user fees.
QUOTE | “Apps offering ‘loot boxes’ or other mechanisms that provide randomised virtual items for purchase must disclose the odds of receiving each type of item to customers prior to purchase.” – A new addition to Apple’s App Store developer guidelines insists on loot box transparency for users.
QUOTE | “The answer is simply: ‘no.’ No microtransactions, of any kind, in our game.” – Obsidian Entertainment answers a fan’s question about whether its new RPG, which will be published by Take-Two’s Private Division label, will feature loot boxes or other microtransations.
QUOTE | “2018 is going to be the year where gamers take the power back. We’re seeing that with the loot box debacle that EA had with Star Wars Battlefront II. I think we’re seeing that in numerous different places.” – Paradox Interactive CEO Fredrik Wester lays out his most positive expected trend for next year.
QUOTE | “I expect 2018 to be a bridge year for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One as a lead in to 2019 new console announcements for launch in 2020.” – The NPD Group’s Mat Piscatella kicks off the next-gen speculation in a round-up of analyst predictions for 2018.
STAT | 50.2% – Amount of UK physical game sales this year that were PlayStation 4 games, making this the first year on record that a single platform has accounted for more than half the market.
QUOTE | “The silencing of people’s voices has clearly had an impact in perpetuating sexual harassment.” – Microsoft chief legal officer Brad Smith explains why the company will no longer use forced arbitration agreements to keep workplace sexual harassment accusations out of open court.
STAT | $US1.57 ($2) – The average lifetime value of female mobile game players, according to DeltaDNA. That’s 44% more than the average lifetime value of male mobile game players.
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