QUOTE | “It’s not worth paying for Paris Hilton.” - EA Mobile’s general manager Bill Mooney, explaining why not all celebrity brands are worth licensing for mobile games.
Elsewhere in the business of gaming this week...
QUOTE | “Lacking any kind of momentum in this multi-screen ecosystem future are Sony and Nintendo. I expect both will be squeezed out of relevance by dramatically larger firms by 2020.” - Glu Mobile CEO Niccolo de Masi, explaining why he thinks control of the living room will belong to companies like Apple and Google.
QUOTE | “First and foremost, I learned that you must put game quality and player experience first in everything that you do. Gamers are not driven to buy games because they have a clever business model.” - Former Blizzard chief operating officer Paul Sams, now CEO of Ready at Dawn, talking about what he learned from 20 years at Blizzard.
STAT | 66% – Percentage of console game releases that are digital-only, according to research firm EEDAR; the number of traditional console game publishers (defined as physical only, or physical plus digital releases) has been declining since 2011.
QUOTE | “We were interested in creating long-form mobile experiences that were closer in spirit to what you would find on PC or a game console.” - Amazon Games Studio exec producer David Holmes, explaining why they did Til Morning’s Light as a premium mobile title.
QUOTE | “Both the Apple and Google stores seem only to offer the bare minimum to help users find and discover content... the best way to get discovered remains to make a great game.” - Game analyst Graham McAllister, talking about how mobile games are found.
STAT | 17.5 million – Number of 3DS handheld consoles sold through March in the US, all different models combined; Nintendo said sales are up more than 50% compared to last year, but the 3DS still trails previous Nintendo handhelds by a considerable amount.
QUOTE | “The Xbox and PS4 hardware are in full swing in China, on top of a growing number of Chinese versions of internationally renowned console games being released to the market.” - Han Zhihai, Secretary General of the ChinaJoy trade show, talking about the rise of console gaming in China.
STAT | 13% – Amount overall US retail sales dropped in May compared to May 2014, according to NPD; software sales dropped 18% and hardware sales dropped 25%, mostly due to the 45% drop in older console sales.
QUOTE | “These are huge fans and they want to be respected. They want to be treated with authentic relationship opportunities, not slammed or used for something they’re not there for.” - Howard Marks of developer XREAL, talking about how they are working with YouTuber Captain Sparklez and his audience.
QUOTE | “We’ve seen enormous growth in more male-oriented, competitive games like Hero Sky.” - Jae Chan Shin, CEO and co-founder of Korean studio Innospark, talking about why the are moving away from developing casual titles.
STAT | 100 million – Number of downloads that Sonic Dash has now surpassed since its release in March 2013, according to Sega; this makes it the most downloaded mobile title in Sonic’s history, and 14 million people play it every month.