What's happened in the business of video games this past week ...
QUOTE | "No sex please, we're gamers."—GamesIndustry.biz's Matt Handrahan talks to Miriam Bellard of No Reply games, who explains why she thinks their erotic game Seduce Me was removed by Steam Greenlight.
QUOTE | "For all we know, social games are a fad."—Chris Grant, Editor-in Chief of Polygon, talking along with other journalists about Zynga's troubles and what they need to do to fix them.
QUOTE | "The industry is changing, and we need to do some experiments."—Yochi Wada, CEO of Square-Enix, explaining why they've started CoreOnline, where you can play games by watching ads.
STAT | 39 percent—Amount the sales of game consoles dropped this August, compared to August 2011; overall game sales (hardware, software, and accessories) at retail were down 20 percent compared to August 2011.
QUOTE | "We always looked at it not as making the sequel to FarmVille, but more about re-imagining digital farming."—Zynga VP of Games Tim LeTourneau, talking about why Zynga's newest game FarmVille2 is a next-gen social game.
QUOTE | "We're not saying greed takes over, but we truly believe a big company cannot run as smoothly."—Russ Phillips, veteran developer of SOCOM, talking about what it's like at their new mobile game startup.
QUOTE | "Yes, there's chaos right now, but a golden age is coming."—Frank Gibeau, President of EA Labels, talking about the game industry's tumultuous transitional period.
STAT | 20—Number of months in a row the Xbox 360 has been the top-selling console in the US; consumers spent more on Xbox 360 products in August than on the other two consoles combined.
QUOTE | "When people start building their games to a spreadsheet it's like putting cars through a wind tunnel—they all come out looking like bullets."—Matias Myllyrinne, managing director of Remedy Entertainment, talking about how relying on metrics kills off innovation.
STAT | 247,000 – Number of copies THQ's Darksiders II sold in the US in August, despite placing #1 in the sales charts; estimates are the game has sold 1 million units worldwide, but it needs 2 million to break even.
QUOTE | "This is a new, unique device that bridges the gap between handheld mobile console and tablets."—James Bower, CEO of Wikipad, talking about their upcoming Android tablet with a detachable game controller.
STAT | 1.65 million – Number of copies of Madden NFL 13 sold in the first week; this is 8 percent over last year's sales on HD consoles.
This Week in the Business courtesy of GamesIndustry International
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