QUOTE | “In a way that we expected, we knew that we were going to have to change our plans from the moment the game went live.” – Bungie COO Pete Parsons, talking about how they are hard at work modifying and extending Destiny
Elsewhere in the business of video games this past week …
QUOTE | “The message is real simple, real clear, three words, Jesus loves you, and we have a bunch of free crap to give you.” – Mikee Bridges of GameChurch, talking about his missionary efforts to bring Christianity to gamers
QUOTE | “Everyone thinks I’m out of my fucking mind, [because] I want the levels to be cloud castles in the sky like Mario.” – Alex Horton, Jagex’s chief creative officer, talking about designing the company’s new game Block N Load
QUOTE | “You can’t effectively test in your house or in your beta group what it means to have 50,000, 100,000, 200,000 users hit your service. And the guys [at the studio] are struggling with that. It’s throwing up things they had not anticipated.” – SCEA president and CEO Shawn Layden, explaining and apologizing for the ongoing problems with DriveClub
QUOTE | “We’re educating them on the aspect that games can be an end product, the games industry is a good place.” – Laila Shabir, the woman behind Girls Make Games, talking about helping girls and parents understand what it’s like to work in the games industry
QUOTE | “Story is definitely not the front-and-center star of games the way it is in TV, but the recognition for how important it is to the overall experience is absolutely growing.” – Leah Hoyer, head of narrative at ArenaNet, explaining how story is becoming more important to gaming
STAT | 90% – Amount of the mobile game revenue on iOS generated by free-to-play games, according to EEDAR; the analyst firm’s data suggests the sweet spot for premium game pricing is from $1.99 to $4.99
QUOTE | “We are very honored to be recognized again as a ‘Best Place to Work’. We believe that fostering an inclusive environment helps us to create great games.” – Andre Chambers, head of Diversity & Inclusion at EA, talking about the company’s award for its support of the LGBT community
QUOTE | “There are studios with five, six, seven years of working in Brazil and launching games in Brazil, but they can’t reach the outside.” – Devolver Digital’s Andrew Parsons, talking about how difficult it is for indie developers in Brazil to get published in other countries
QUOTE | “We’re really in a fortunate position where a lot of people want to be working with us and we don’t necessarily have enough people to support all of those requests.” – Ubisoft Toronto producer Lesley Phord-Toy talking about the growth of the studio and how other Ubi studios all want to work with Toronto now
