QUOTE | "There was a time when spines were pulled out of players, and we don't have to do that anymore." - Veteran designer Sid Meier, explaining why he thinks game designers should create a "positive climate."
Elsewhere in the business of video games this past week ...
QUOTE | "I can absolutely say that we lost [player] trust in the game's launch and the early parts of the year." - DICE LA producer David Sirland, talking about the issues around the launch of Battlefield 4 and how he plans to do better.
QUOTE | "I think what we need to do is focus on heart first and money second. By the way, that's a good business strategy." - Owen Mahoney, CEO of Nexon, explaining how executives have done the gaming industry a disservice.
QUOTE | "Intel believes men and women should be treated the same… We apologize and we are deeply sorry if we offended anyone." - Official statement from Intel after a backlash from the company pulling its ad support from Gamasutra due to #GamerGate complaints.
STAT | 34,000 – Number of TV commercials Candy Crush Saga publisher King Digital has run in the USA so far this year; this handily beats Microsoft's 7,500 commercial airings and Sony's 3,000 airings.
QUOTE | "We as an industry have reached a quality level now where it is getting increasingly more difficult to really wow people." - Crytek rendering engineer Nicolas Schulz, acknowledging that graphics across the industry are getting better.
QUOTE | "The moral here isn't that your brand needs to be part of your design early... it's that brand and design are one in the same." - Paul Murphy, co-founder and CEO of Dots, talking about building successful mobile games.
QUOTE | "A lot of studios have gone down... We have been resilient to that, and I think it's because we never stand still." - Will Musson of Ubisoft Reflections, the studio behind Driver, talking about how they've survived for 30 years.
STAT | 2.8 million – Number of copies of Super Smash Bros. for the 3DS sold worldwide in its first few weeks; Nintendo believes the Wii U version of the game, coming out November 21, will also be a big hit.
QUOTE | "We've got a 10-year head start or even a 20-year head start. We're not like young pups out of the garage." - Telltale CEO Dan Connors, explaining why Telltale's emotional storytelling games have been successful.
STAT | $12.2 billion – Amount of game company acquisitions for 2014 so far doubling the full year 2013 total; this year, acquisitions have been split evenly between China and the USA, with Microsoft's $2.5 billion purchase of Mojang in the lead.