What’s happened in the business of video games this past week …
QUOTE | “Consumers no longer want to pay $US40 for Nintendo games.” — T. Scott Edwards, PlayMG Corp Founding Partner, talking about why their MG Android-based portable is a better gaming value than the Nintendo 3DS.
STAT | Eight — Number of Zynga execs that have left the company in the last month; this has occurred since the stock dropped more than 70 per cent in value with no sign of a recovery any time soon.
QUOTE | “Oh my god, this is incredible, this is just gonna change everything.” — Brendan Iribe, CEO of Oculus, describing how he felt when he tried out the company’s Rift virtual reality headset for the first time.
QUOTE | “All of those turn-of-the-millennium executives in video games were wrong.” — Arkane Studio’s Harvey Smith (Dishonored), talking about how scripted experiences are not what players are looking for these days.
QUOTE | “We need to be constantly reinventing our games and ourselves … Complacency kills.” — Petri Järvilehto, EVP Games at Rovio, explaining why Rovio needs to keep pushing forward on new designs after Angry Birds.
QUOTE | “What Zynga created on Facebook was a new distribution channel for games, but they did not create a new type of game.” — Steve Fowler, veteran game marketer, talking about why the social game bubble is bursting for Zynga.
QUOTE | “The subscription model is dead in the water.” — Rob Fahey, former editor of Gamesindustry.biz, talking about how Star Wars: The Old Republic switching to free-to-play shows the future of MMOs.
QUOTE | “Publishers used to fundamentally add value… That’s not the case anymore.” — David Helgason, CEO of Unity Technologies, talking about how the world of game development has changed.
QUOTE | “We’re still seeing the PC market is not dead, it’s very much alive.” — Kip Katsarelis, producer for EA Maxis on the new SimCity, talking about why they decided to aim for the PC game market first.
STAT | 900,000 — Number of copies of EA’s Madden NFL 13 sold on the first day at retail; this is a seven per cent increase from last year and a new record for the franchise.
STAT | One million — Number of copies sold so far of New Super Mario Bros 2 for the 3DS in Japan; the title held the top sales spot for the third week running in Japan.
QUOTE | “Both PS4 and the next Xbox need a ‘killer app’ to get them out of the blocks.” — Johnny Minkley, games writer and broadcaster, talking about what’s needed to sell a next-gen game console.
STAT | One million — Number of units of Guild Wars 2 that were sold prior to the game’s launch; pre-purchasing the game gave buyers access to the three-day head start.
This Week in the Business courtesy of GamesIndustry International
Image from Shutterstock
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