QUOTE | “They were sparring, with a little braggadocio, a little machismo, in a very immature way. Our employee said something he shouldn’t have said. It’s embarrassing.” - Kabam SVP Steve Swasey, explaining why competitor Machine Zone is suing Kabam over trade secrets.
Elsewhere in the business of gaming this week...
QUOTE | “Maybe it’s just delusions of grandeur, but you just think, if I release a game, everyone will go, ‘What’s that?’ And then they’ll all pile onto the servers, have a great time, and get the ball rolling and talk about it. But that didn’t happen.” - Dan Marshall, creator of Gun Monkeys, talking about why he now realizes how important marketing is to games.”
QUOTE | “I realised that with work I’d have to do to actually create a demo, I might as well make the game.” - Tim Follin, creator of Contradiction—Spot the Liar!, talking about how the full-motion video indie game came about.
QUOTE | “Fundamental changes are needed to ensure Rovio succeeds in its global ambitions to be the leading entertainment company with mobile games at its heart.” - Rovio CEO Pekka Rantala, talking about why the company is laying off 260 employees, for a total of 370 employees in less than a year.
QUOTE | “Overall, the market for mobile games is growing, and there are hundreds of thousands of games out there. However, all of the growth is within the top 1 per cent, even a fraction of the top 1 per cent.” - Wooga CEO Jens Begemann, talking about how they have to spend much more on marketing to have a chance at success.
STAT | 15% – Percentage of total American mobile phone usage time devoted to games in 2015, according to Yahoo! analytics firm Flurry; total mobile phone usage rose by 35% over 2014, but game time dropped from 32% of total time (from 52 minutes per day to 33 minutes per day).
QUOTE | “You don’t make money by making games, you make money by shipping games.” - Pixelbomb Games lead coder Phil Muwanga, talking about why the two-year-old studio is determined to get its ambitious debut title Beyond Flesh and Blood finished.
QUOTE | “We’re not seeking to make a game that heaps of people will play... We’re only making it because I really want to play this game.” - DayZ creator Dean Hall, explaining why he’s making his new MMO called Ion.
QUOTE | “As fame and celebrity latch onto the games industry as it moves upward, it begs the question of if and how it will affect the industry.” - SuperData’s CEO Joost van Dreunen, talking about the increasing importance of noted actors and celebrities on games.
QUOTE | “Your average game fan who chooses a project to invest in will know as much or more about what they are doing and the risk they are taking as your average investor in anything.” - Mike Wilson, co-founder of Devlover Digital and Gambitious, arguing why “equity crowdfunding” is a good idea.
QUOTE | “We’ve seen a lot of great initiatives on the hardware side, but ultimately it’s going to be the content that sells headsets.” - Tommy Palm, CEO and co-founder of Resolution Games, talking about how his company raised $6 million to create VR games.
STAT | 3.7% – Amount video game hardware sales rose at GameStop last quarter compared to the same quarter last year, according to the company; however, that 3.7% increase is after you adjust for the change in the value of the dollar, and without that adjustment hardware revenue dropped 2.2%.
Top image via Shutterstock.