What’s happened in the business of video games this past week …
QUOTE | “Being too ambitious, as we have seen with THQ for example, is not always a good thing.” — Koch Media co-founder Dr. Klemes Kundratitz, on rapid growth at Koch Media and its publishing arm Deep Silver.
QUOTE | “GameStop has at least 10 years of runway left in its core business.” — Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter, saying predictions of GameStop’s demise are very premature.
QUOTE | “I think retail’s a strong part of our industry and it will continue to be so.” — Chris Early, Ubisoft’s VP of digital publishing, saying digital will grow and retail might change, but they will co-exist.
QUOTE | “I want to show that you can make an unbelievable game without a publisher.” — Brian Fargo, CEO of InXile Entertainment, on the challenges of creating a crowd-funded game.
QUOTE | “The thing I’m most excited about is the ubiquity of second screen.” — Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg, on the features of next-gen consoles that seem most compelling to him.
STAT | 19% — Amount that total retail sales of video game hardware, software and accessories dropped in July compared to July 2012; hardware dropped 34% as consumers waited for next-gen, but 3DS sales rose 14%.
QUOTE | “They’ve always been hard to sell.” — Dishonored co-creative director Raphael Colantonio, on why Arkane is very happy that its new IP Dishonored sold well enough to become a franchise for Bethesda.
STAT | 1 billion — Number of page views per month that eSports behemoth Team Curse is pulling in; Team Curse expects to clear more than $US20 million in revenue this year.
STAT | $US1.5 billion — Amount that Skylanders games and toys have brought in at retail since the debut of the franchise; so far Skylanders toys have been the top action figure brand in the U.S. and Europe in 2013.
QUOTE | “When you’re investing millions of dollars, you really want to make a safe bet … but it’s still ultimately just guesswork.” — Craig Hubbard, co-founder of startup Blackpowder Games, on the game creation process.
QUOTE | “The more choice you give players the more difficult giving them a seamless audio environment is.” — Marty O’Donnell, veteran composer at Bungie, talking with other top composers about the evolution of game music.
This Week in the Business courtesy of GamesIndustry International
Image by Elnur [Shutterstock]
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3 responses to “This Week In The Business: Fortune Also Favours The Cautious”
QUOTE | “GameStop has at least 10 years of runway left in its core business.” — Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter, saying predictions of GameStop’s demise are very premature.
QUOTE | “I think retail’s a strong part of our industry and it will continue to be so.” — Chris Early, Ubisoft’s VP of digital publishing, saying digital will grow and retail might change, but they will co-exist.
We should get these two guys together.
Really because you’ve made such great use of the integrated one in the Wii U… no wait you haven’t.
Well, the Wii U hasn’t sold all that well, so the current audience with second screen capability is quite small.
When the PS4 is introduced, with will bring in the HUGE demographic of PS Vita owners… oh, hang on…
Well, the Vita is actually a very good system (proprietary memory cards aside) so it would be nice if it did work out that way.