QUOTE | “Just as the line between gamer and non-gamer has been destroyed, I think the distinction between console and mobile will become less distinct over time.” – Scopely’s Walter Driver thinks Apple TV is just one more step toward an ultimate convergence in gaming
Elsewhere in the business of games this week…
QUOTE | “The console installed base is as big as it’s ever going to get.” – Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter also chimed in after the Apple TV reveal, saying this may be the last console generation because people soon won’t need consoles to play console-quality games.
QUOTE | “If movies had the same market dynamics as games, they would have a lot less cultural power and a lot less economic power.” Hand Eye Society executive director Jim Munroe, explaining how advocating for artistic, non-commercial games benefits the commercial industry as well
QUOTE | “For every time I found a great piece online about how a Pewdiepie generated X hundreds of thousands of dollars there was another developer saying that they actually didn’t see a single spike at all.” – Capy Games head Nathan Vella on the unpredictable benefits of being featured by YouTubers; he added that Capy once had a game featured by Total Biscuit, and said it didn’t result in a single extra sale.
QUOTE | “Gamers want so desperately for games to function as art, to witness games about the depth of human experience — and here is Twitch, a crucial platform in games culture that had 44 percent livestreaming market share in 2014, insisting ‘NO’ — games should only ever snicker about sex and nudity, like some stoned tweens clutching smuggled Hot Pockets in the back of a movie theater.” – Robert Yang, taking issue with Twitch banning his latest game, Rinse and Repeat, from broadcast.
QUOTE | “I leave knowing that Maxis is in great hands with a leader and teams who are full of respect for our players, passion for our games, and new ideas to bring to the world of Maxis gamers.” – Former Maxis senior VP Lucy Bradshaw, as she departs EA after 23 years
STAT | $1,000 – The entry-level cost of low-end Oculus Ready PCs; the program was announced this week as a way to let gamers know whether or not new rigs could handle the Oculus Rift’s technical demands
QUOTE | “What’s really scaring me is the prospect of what people could do with ads. I mean, ads aren’t evil, but the combination of the immersion… You could be a little trapped when you’re in VR.” – Temple Gates Games co-founder Theresa Duringer shares her concerns about a potential downside to VR
STAT | 174,000 – The number of unique games and apps made in Unity from April through July of this year. Collectively, they were installed 2.5 billion times across 1.1 billion devices
QUOTE | “We don’t believe in wand-based input for the future of VR. We really believe in hand presence, in hand input, so we let everybody else go.” – Oculus’ Brendan Iribe explains the strategy in waiting so long to reveal the Oculus Touch controllers
STAT | 93%- The percentage of game audio professionals responding to the 2015 Game Audio Industry Survey who are male; that’s actually down from 96% in last year’s survey
QUOTE | “These proposals are completely without precedent in the entertainment industry and we believe they are reckless and ill-advised” – The SAG-AFTRA union, in response to game publishers’ initial proposals as they renegotiate the terms governing union voice acting for games
