QUOTE | "[Tomb Raider has] exceeded profit expectations and continues to make significant contributions to our overall financial performance." - Square Enix' head of studios Darrell Gallagher, explaining why the game is on its way to becoming the best-selling version in the franchise's history.
Elsewhere in the business of video games this past week ...
QUOTE | “There is a fear about it because the model is so different. I think that's the elephant in the room that people aren't talking about.” - Kabam president Andrew Sheppard, talking about the free-to-play business model and why “F2P is the most democratic form of development.”
QUOTE | “By removing itself from the pricing process on Steam, Valve has just made its platform hyper-competitive.” - Industry analyst Nicholas Lovell, talking about why Valve's decision to let developers set their own prices will push the price of PC games to free.
QUOTE | “Now we think the software is good enough, it's ready to be embedded in other people's devices.” - Julie Uhrman, CEO of Ouya, talking about Ouya's plans to spread its games and interface to other Android devices.
STAT | 1 million – Number of copies sold of Microsoft Studio's RPG Dust: An Elysian Tail; the indie game was released on Xbox Live Arcade in 2012, and then came to Windows, Linux and Mac in 2013.
QUOTE | “When you're in a meeting and someone says, 'This feature is selling' or 'this game did X,' just think to yourself, 'Is this about the player?” - Robin Hunicke, co-founder of Funomena, talking about why game companies should make games for players, and not sales.
QUOTE | “We've really looked at what makes sense as a business model and what things were broken.” - OnLive general manager Bruce Grove, explaining how the streaming game service is re-inventing itself.”
STAT | 10 million – Number of registered players for Creaky Corpse's MMO Dead Frontier; “That's a moderately sized country right there,” said the game's creator Neil Yates.
QUOTE | "If VR isn't affordable it might as well not exist for most people." - Oculus founder Palmer Luckey, talking about how the company is striving to keep the price of the VR headset as low as possible while still meeting the necessary specs.
STAT | 2.5 million – Number of credit-card-sized Raspberry Pi computers that have been sold in two years; the founders have launched a $10,000 competition to run Quake III on the Linux device.
This Week in the Business courtesy of GamesIndustry International
Image by Blue Sky Image | Shutterstock