QUOTE | “The reality of doing business in the games industry is much more nuanced than prevailing industry opinions would suggest, namely because those opinions lack appropriate context.” - Butterscotch Shenanigans’ Sam Coster explains why the studio ignored everyone telling it a simultaneous mobile-PC launch for its Crashlands was a terrible idea.
Elsewhere in the business of gaming this week...
QUOTE | “We try to really immerse players as much as possible into the intimacies of the character and that’s why we have certain scenes with very mundane gameplay...” - Quantic Dream COO Guillaume de Fondaumière shares one of the studio’s secrets to emotional immersion.
QUOTE | “With their friendship and respect for each other still very much intact, Watsham and Hargrove will continue developing videogames under the names of their new companies: Atooi and Infitizmo” - Renegade Kid announces its own demise as the Mutant Mudds studio’s two co-founders have decided to go their separate ways.
QUOTE | “It’s really hard to talk about these games. You have to be tasteful, you have to think three times about every aspect. It’s like walking through a minefield. A mistake could cost them a lot.” - 11 bit Studios publishing director Paweł Feldman explains why the This War of Mine company has an edge on competition like EA when it comes to signing “meaningful games” like Papers Please or Life is Strange.
QUOTE | “We don’t dread a console transition or new machines. We kinda like it.” - Electronic Arts’ Patrick Söderlund, explaining that the Frostbite engine’s modular architecture could allow it to power EA games through this generation of consoles and beyond.
QUOTE | “I think Sony and Microsoft have done this incredibly well. They have taken what they needed to do... to keep the platform fresh for technology that’s moving faster than the archaic nature of a 10-year piece of hardware cycle.” - EA chief competition officer Peter Moore says the publisher welcomes the coming age of Neo, Scorpio, and rolling console hardware refreshes.
STAT | $493 million - Newzoo’s recently revised estimate of this year’s global eSports revenues. Previously, it had been projecting competitive games to bring in $463 million.
STAT | 40 - The number of staff laid off by German mobile publisher Wooga this week. After attempting to expand into core games last year, it has now re-shifted its focus to casual games.
QUOTE | “We are looking for new apps and games (not updates to existing ones) that are testing new ideas, user interaction flows, business ideas etc.” - Google explains why it wants from developers nominating their games for inclusion into Google Play Early Access.
STAT | £16.5 million - The amount of money Lloyds Development Capital invested in Team17. Once synonymous with its Worms franchise, Team17 is expanding its publishing business, and will be releasing Playtonic’s Yooka-Laylee and Steamroller Studios’ Deadwood: The Forgotten Curse.
QUOTE | “Perhaps GameFront is a dinosaur and not needed. But we want to believe that there is still a community of gamers out there, who want an open gaming site, that embodies DRM free principles and allows anyone to create and share content they are working on, without restriction.” - A ModDB statement on the site’s acquisition of GameFront, which it plans to relaunch.