QUOTE | “As an industry person, I hope they drop like a fly. It’s better when the industry gets shaken up.” – Unity CEO David Helgason, joking about Supercell’s Clash of Clans, though he was making a serious point about wanting to see more variety
Elsewhere in the business of video games this past week …
QUOTE | “I actually look at that episode as a relatively proud moment. For us, it showed that the system worked.” – ESRB president Patricia Vance, talking about the infamous Hot Coffee scene in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
STAT | $325 Million – Amount generated by Bungie’s Destiny in its first 5 days, according to Activision; that is more than half of the $500 million worth of Destiny sold-in to retailers on the first day
QUOTE | “The acquisition makes strategic sense for Microsoft in terms of strengthening the games platform, but also extending the company more into the realms of cloud and mobile.” – Baird analyst Colin Sebastian commenting along with other analysts on Microsoft’s $2.5 billion purchase of Minecraft developer Mojang
QUOTE | “My belief is that in the future of our industry… the relationships that you have with the players are going to be the deciding factor between success and failure.” – Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson, explaining the goals he’s trying to reach with EA
STAT | $1.7 billion – Amount that Sony reduced its profit forecast for its fiscal year, according to their note to investors; the company now expects to lose nearly $500 million for the year, mostly due to its mobile business
QUOTE | “We’re in the business of mobile entertainment and this is a game that is enjoyed by millions, the majority of whom aren’t paying at all.” – Glu Mobile SVP Christopher Locke, commenting on the success of Kim Kardashian: Hollywood, which was the most downloaded game on iOS in July.
QUOTE | “I think we’ll see a lot more business model innovation. I don’t know that in the end we’ll ever see premium go away.” – Ex-EA CEO John Riccitiello, talking about why he thinks free-to-play games won’t completely dominate the industry
STAT | 73% – Percentage of over 300 developers surveyed who said platform holders don’t do enough to help get games discovered on their platforms, according to GDC Next; nearly 25% of developers said getting a boost from a YouTube personality could have the most impact on sales
QUOTE | “The relationship with the community is more important, frankly, than the relationship you have with advertising partners, retail partners or things like that.” – Motiga’s SVP of publishing David Reid, talking about the huge importance of community to games today
STAT | 20 million – Number of players Hearthstone has reached, according to Blizzard; the game came out in March for PC and Mac, and hit 10 million players a month later (arriving on iPad at that time)
STAT | $1.50 – The cost per install, on average, for an Android game, according to analytics firm Fiksu; costs per install for iOS games are about 50 cents less, but both costs are rising
