QUOTE | “If Gears was realistic you wouldn’t be running around in giant metal moon boots right?” - The Coalition head Rod Fergusson, talking about getting a new team up to speed on Gears of War as they remake the original and prepare Gears of War 4.
QUOTE | “Easy - my brother Jared and I mortgaged our houses to fund the game, so there was no need to have our idea greenlit.” - Chad Moldenhauer, art director of Studio MDHR, explaining to Warren Spector how they managed to get the money to make their ‘30s animation-style game Cuphead.
STAT | 366 million – Number of mobile gamers in China during the first half of this year; that’s more than the entire population of North America, while China also had 305 million browser game players and 134 million PC game players.
STAT | 135% – Amount that games revenue rose last quarter for Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment over the same quarter last year, raking in $727 million; the company attributed this to excellent sales of both Batman: Arkham Knight and Mortal Kombat X.
QUOTE | “I think it’s important that people in this industry can live in this country and get a favourable return for their work.” - Torsten Reil, CEO of Zynga subsidiary NaturalMotion, explaining why he’s happy to pay good salaries for good people.
QUOTE | “People think that to make a game for Arab culture means deserts, camels and traditional dress. This is stereotyping.” - Samer Abbas, co-founder of Play 3arabi, talking about why there are only 250 mobile games with Arabic as the first language.
STAT | 160% – Growth in profits at Konami last quarter over the same quarter last year, to $34.5 million; the company’s games division saw revenues increase 16.7%, with their sports titles leading the way.
STAT | 20 million – Number of downloads that Angry Birds 2 achieved in its first week after release; according to Rovio it took more than 9 months to reach that level for the first Angry Birds.
QUOTE | “The challenge now will be enabling the consumer to have access to digital content and services in a region where credit card penetration is below 15 percent.” - Naranya CEO Arturo Galván, talking about the difficulties in getting 300 million Latin Americans to spend money on mobile games.
STAT | $4.425 billion – Amount of revenue Activision Blizzard now expects for the full year, after their last quarter showed an 8% rise over last year; the company also revealed that World of Warcraft lost 1.5 million subscribers in the last quarter.
STAT | 49% – Percentage of game developers who feel the game industry lacks equal opportunities, according to the IGDA; 66.5% of developers said diversity is an important factor in the industry, down from 79% last year.