STAT | $US30,000 ($42,201) – What it costs to have a top-tier streamer play your game for an hour on their channel, according to IndieCatapult’s Steve Filby, who was marketing manager on Motion Twin’s Dead Cells. (Motion Twin didn’t pay up, but devised a strategy that resulted in big streamers playing the game for free.)
QUOTE | “Every game, at some point, in some way has currency and they’re trying to get additional revenue from each player that plays the game. You know, the question has to be when does it feel like it’s a straight money grab versus when does it feel like it’s value added, right?” – NBA 2K19 senior producer Rob Jones says recurring revenue schemes are “an unfortunate reality of modern gaming.”
QUOTE | “Psychologically, we find that people misbehave when there is somebody else to observe them misbehaving. When it’s a one-on-one game, what is my motivation for saying something awful?” – Valve’s Jeep Barnett isn’t worried that about discouraging bad behaviour in the company’s new competitive card game Artifact, which will feature live chat for players during matches.
QUOTE | “Our review of something that may be ‘a troll game’ is a deep assessment that actually begins with the developer. We investigate who this developer is, what they’ve done in the past, their behaviour on Steam as a developer, as a customer, their banking information, developers they associate with, and more. All of this is done to answer the question ‘who are we partnering with and why do they want to sell this game?’” – Valve offers some clarity into how it determines whether a game on Steam qualifies as “straight up trolling,” and would thus be removed from sale.
QUOTE | “So yes, in the interest of justice, equality, and fairness, men need to be excluded sometimes. That’s perfectly fine. Trust me, you’ll have about a billion other opportunities that these women won’t have. But no, you have to be absolute overgrown toddlers and throw hissy fits.” – Riot Games systems designer Daniel Z. Klein defends the company’s decision to have specific career-building PAX West activities only open to women and non-binary attendees.
QUOTE | “There is more than enough content this holiday. That’s why we’re working with so many third-party partners to showcase their games and help drive our platform during that window. I can’t think of a holiday that had more AAA games in such a tight time period.” – Xbox marketing boss Aaron Greenberg explains why Microsoft’s first-party holiday lineup consists solely of Forza Horizon 4.
QUOTE | “They’re not cheap enough. They don’t work well enough, you don’t have enough good control systems, you can’t see your arms and your legs in most of them and use them in an interactive way, there’s not a lot of content.” – Unity CEO John Riccitiello is not impressed with the current wave of VR headsets.
QUOTE | “Of course every combat sport has its origins in a real fight among people. But sport is the civilised expression about this. If you have egames where it’s about killing somebody, this cannot be brought into line with our Olympic values.” – International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach explains why ‘killer games’ will not be considered for inclusion in the iconic sporting event.
QUOTE | “The house in Gone Home is very much laid out the way I would lay out a BioShock level, in this kind of hub and spoke shape that’s gradually unlocking. But when you go into a room it’s not a combat encounter; it’s a place for you to find things.” – Fullbright’s Steve Gaynor explains the design and intent behind Gone Home on its fifth anniversary.
STAT | $US425 ($598) million – The cost for Black Desert Online developer Pearl Abyss to acquire Eve Online studio CCP Games, if certain financial targets are met.
QUOTE | “We hope we can better guide under-aged players toward more reasonable gaming habits, and preserve their healthy development. At the same time, we also want to join hands with parents and society in general to address identity theft and transfers.” – Tencent explains why it will begin checking identities of Chinese Honour of Kings players against a public security database to identify underage games and limit their playing time.
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