What’s happened in the business of video games this past week …
QUOTE | “[Next Xbox] will be a very hot, compelling device … I think the world is going to stand up and take notice.”—GameStop CEO J. Paul Raines, talking about the as-yet-unofficial new console from Microsoft rumored to be coming out this year
QUOTE | “As cool as triple-A games are, the time and money that go into them now is just soul-crushing.”—Warren Spector, designer of Deus Ex and Epic Mickey, talking about leaving Disney and his desire to work on smaller teams
QUOTE | “There is a general belief that games with female characters won’t sell as well.”—Jade Raymond, managing director of Ubisoft Toronto, talking about how the audience for games still needs to mature
STAT | $1—Annual salary that Zynga’s CEO Mark Pincus will be taking home now after a difficult last year year; he has also asked to be exempted from the company’s bonus program and equity awards
QUOTE | “There really aren’t issues around monetization, whether it’s too aggressive or ads are too in-your-face. Everything works.”—John Coligan, Konami director of digital publishing, saying that he doesn’t hear complaints from gamers abut free-to-play games
QUOTE | “I never felt that real ultra-hardcore are all going to end up playing mobile games.”—Ben Cousins, head of DeNA’s studio working on a tablet FPS game, talking about how mobile games won’t replace console games
QUOTE | “We don’t want to be pay-to-win.”—Meteor Entertainment producer Paul Loynd, talking about how the company is careful to keep free-to-play mech game Hawken competitive for all players
STAT | 10 million—Number of units of Minecraft sold for the PC to date; the game has sold more than 15 million units for all platforms as of the end of 2012
QUOTE | “Ultimately the numbers would show that they all support the freemium model better.”—EA mobile head Nick Earl, talking about how EA will focus on free-to-play mobile games even though a “vocal minority” despises those games
QUOTE | “It’s very rare that companies positioned in an old model are able to transition to a new model and survive.”—EA Labels president Frank Gibeau, talking about how he’s proud of where EA is at right now
This Week in the Business courtesy of GamesIndustry International. Image by Shutterstock.
