What's happened in the business of video games this past week ...
QUOTE | "Immaturity and multiplayer gaming go hand in hand."—Ethan Levy, design consultant, talking in depth about the new player experience in League of Legends and why it should be improved.
QUOTE | "It can take video games in general to a new place."—Indie developer Jonathan Blow (The Witness) on the huge potential of Valve's VR headset and his intent to support it and other VR devices.
QUOTE | "The truth is indie developers don't necessarily need publishers."—Majesco VP Casey Lynch, on why a publisher has formed indie label Midnight City to serve indie developers.
STAT | 20 million—Number of copies of Skyrim that Bethesda Softworks has sold so far since its November 2011 release; this puts the game among the top 20 selling titles of all time.
QUOTE | "We actually think the launch of the new console systems will help lift the PC game business because there is large overlap between console and PC gamers."—Analyst David Cole of DFC Intelligence on growth in PC gaming, as they revised their projection for the PC game market in 2014 from $22 billion to $25 billion.
STAT | $1.2 billion—Amount of revenue GungHo Entertainment, publisher of Puzzle & Dragons, expects this fiscal year; over $700 million of that amount is net profit.
QUOTE | "I think Microsoft is committed to the 360 for a number of years and I anticipate both Sony and Microsoft getting behind their platforms at least for the next two years."—EA COO Peter Moore, on why he thinks the Xbox 360 and the PS3 business will remain strong.
STAT | 15 million—Number of 3DS consoles sold so far in Japan, combining sales of all models; still, the 3DS is not meeting Nintendo's earlier sales projections for the 3DS line which it cut by 25%.
STAT | 51 million—Number of iPhones Apple sold in the last three months of 2013, up 7% from 2012; the company also sold 26 million iPads, up 14% from 2012.
STAT | 11—Number of consecutive years of growth for casual games company Big Fish, which had $266 million in revenue for 2013; Big Fish began on PC and now gets more than half its revenue on mobile.
This Week in the Business courtesy of GamesIndustry International
Image by mikeledray | Shutterstock