QUOTE | “In our analysis, stores charging 30% are marking up their costs by 300% to 400%. But with developers receiving 88% of revenue and Epic receiving 12%, this store will be a profitable business for us.” - Epic Games’ Tim Sweeney explains the thinking behind the newly launched Epic Games Store while throwing a little shade on Steam.
QUOTE | “It’s always been apparent that successful games and their large audiences have a material impact on those network effects so making sure Steam recognizes and continues to be an attractive platform for those games is an important goal for all participants in the network.” - Valve says reducing the percentage it takes from the most successful games on Steam while continuing to command a 30% cut of smaller titles’ revenues benefits those smaller titles and their developers.
QUOTE | “In general, we’re always trying to show games to customers that we think they will enjoy, no matter who made them, what the budget was, when they came out, etc.” - Valve explains a recent change it made to the Steam discovery algorithms that a number of indie developers said cratered the amount of traffic to their games.
QUOTE | “If no one buys your game then Valve gets 0% and that, indie developers, is how you stick it to the man.” - Fictitious Devolver Digital executive Fork Parker joins a host of indies weighing in on the changes to Steam.
QUOTE | “Self-regulation is too late. The sledgehammer is coming whether we like it or not.” - One executive responds to a behind-closed-door event for the UK games industry in which a panelist warned that the industry must self-regulate loot boxes now or else government legislation will take a sledgehammer to the business.
QUOTE | “As a creator, all I care about is getting our games in front of millions of people so we can watch them play and hear about their experience. Game Pass immediately provides us that audience and gives us more energy to focus on creativity rather than worrying about things like monetisation.” - Brian Fargo, founder of recent Microsoft acquisition inXile Entertainment, has no reservations about the studio’s upcoming titles being given away as part of a subscription service.
QUOTE | “So we built Xbox Game Pass — it started on console, it will come to PC, and eventually it will come to every device — we use the flywheel that we have with customers on an Xbox to start the growth in Xbox Game Pass.” - Microsoft’s Phil Spencer opens the door to a future where gamers could play Halo on their Nintendo or Sony consoles.
QUOTE | “Because we have these world premieres and announcements, it gets a massive audience through the front door, and then our awards and presentations are heavily watched around the world because people want to see these game announcements. I think it’s the best way to get game developers and game creators in front of this audience.” - Geoff Keighley explains why The Game Awards devotes so much time to games that aren’t out yet for an event ostensibly honoring those that came out in the last year.
QUOTE | “My aim is definitely to continue acquiring IPs — and I personally have a deep love for many of these old games. Collecting them all together makes sense and we have shown fans that we are actually able to do something with them.” -After buying the Carmageddon franchise from Stainless Games this week, THQ Nordic CEO Lars Wingefors says the company isn’t done adding old franchises to its lineup.
STAT | 69% - Projected year-over-year increase of worldwide AR and VR spending in 2019, according to IDC.
QUOTE | “Because Article 13 makes Twitch liable for any potential copyright infringement activity with uploaded works, Twitch could be forced to impose filters and monitoring measures on all works uploaded by residents of the EU.” - Twitch is among a number of online platforms taking a public stand against the European Union’s pending Copyright Directive, which could make platforms liable for copyright infringement that occurs on their services.