STAT | $70 billion– The size of the VR market by 2020, as projected by research firm TrendForce. For comparison, Superdata this year estimated the current worldwide gaming industry—console, PC, mobile, social, eSports, VR, digital and physical— at $74.2 billion.
Elsewhere in the business of gaming this week...
STAT | $1.4 billion – The amount of funding raised to date by augmented reality company Magic Leap, which has yet to even show a product, much less begin selling one
QUOTE | “As a pre-revenue start-up, our resources are finite.” - Motiga’s Chris Chung, explaining why the Gigantic developer laid off 16 people as it delayed the PC and Xbox One game’s launch to next year.
QUOTE | “As a longtime champion of competitive gaming, bringing this to life at EA is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me.” - Peter Moore, Electronic Arts’ new chief competition officer.
QUOTE | “As we embark on this new chapter in CCP’s story, it’s really important to us to further build on the fantastic relationship we’ve built with our customers.” - CCP Games CEO Hilmar Veigar Pétursson, explaining why the company established the new executive position of chief customer officer.
STAT | 9% – The percentage of successfully funded Kickstarter projects that fail to deliver on what they promised, as determined by a University of Pennsylvania researcher.
QUOTE | “We are thrilled to be launching the studio in Montreal and contributing our city’s great game-making talent to the kind of games that Bethesda Game Studios is known for.” - Yves Lachance, studio head for Bethesda’s new studio in Quebec. Bethesda is the latest publisher to be attracted by the province’s deep talent pool and generous tax incentives, except for Gearbox.
QUOTE | “We now look ahead to another key and exciting step which is our commitment towards our all-new Gearbox Studio Quebec where we strive to team up with some incredible talent in the world of video game development outside of Texas to help us build fun and exciting video games within our tent-pole brands.” - Randy Pitchford, president of Gearbox, the actual latest publisher to be attracted by Quebec’s deep talent pool and generous tax incentives. Unless something’s happened since this was written on Friday afternoon.
STAT | 90% – The increase in Activision Blizzard’s stock price over the course of 2015, a bigger jump than any other publicly traded publisher, platform holder, or mobile game company.
QUOTE | “Mobile gaming is becoming artisanal. That’s a good thing. It started off as just being, like, throw a million things at the wall, for free-to-play. But that artisanal quality is a double-edged sword.” - GREE International COO Andrew Sheppard, emphasizing that mobile publishers need to accept the limits of their own expertise.
QUOTE | “Now that we have sharpened our organisational focus and set the table for an exciting 2016, I feel now the time is right for me to step aside and move on to new challenges.” - Outgoing Rovio CEO Pekka Rentala, explaining why he was leaving the Angry Birds developer after a little over a year on the job.
STAT | 17% – The percentage of mobile gamers in the US who learned about a game they play through a TV commercial.
QUOTE | “The format feels good, and it’s been nice to see the audience response - two solid years means we’re on the right path.” - The Game Awards host and creator Geoff Keighley, assessing this year’s event as he plans for a 2016 return.