This Week In The Business_ Oops, Bad Choice Of Words

QUOTE | “We’re very close to having the first VR death.” – Denny Unger, creative director at Cloudhead Games, talking during Unite 2014 about the very real dangers developers will grapple with in VR Elsewhere in the business of video games this past week … QUOTE | “The post was deliberately written in the most incendiary way possible.” – Puppy Games co-founder Caspian Prince, explaining why he created a furor when he said customers “are worthless to us.” QUOTE | “As I worked in the company in a variety of different roles, it became apparent to me that in some areas we’d lost our way a little bit.” – EA CEO Andrew Wilson, explaining why he wants to focus on customers first rather than financial returnscnx.cmd.push(function(){cnx({"playerId":"e3616d04-4972-4839-a63a-c6975e2e9731","settings":{"advertising":{"macros":{"AD_UNIT":"/23178111854/od.kotaku.com/article","CHILD_UNIT":"article","POST_ID":"1625762558","POST_TYPE":"post","CHANNEL":"culture","SECTION":"","SUBSECTION":"","CATEGORIES":"culture","TAGS":"","NOP":"0"},"timeBeforeFirstAd":0}}}).render("cnx-player-main")}); QUOTE | e19 “I knew there would be some push back when we came out. Certain people won’t believe this: it doesn’t come from an evil space.” – Xbox head Phil Spencer, commenting on the response to Microsoft’s announcement of Rise of the Tomb Raider as an Xbox exclusive.” QUOTE | “Our schtick, if you will, is mobile games for core gamers not core games for mobile.” – Industrial Toys co-founder Tim Harris, talking about their new mobile shooter Midnight Star QUOTE | “Super Smash Bros. will be a trigger to increase the momentum of the Wii U at Christmas.” – Ubisoft’s Alain Corre, explaining why the Wii U might be reviving soon, along with the pending release of Just Dance 2015 STAT | $51 million – Amount of money that Chris Robert’s Star Citizen game has raised through crowdfunding so far; the sales spike that boosted the total in the last few days occurred when four ships, priced from $200 to $400, were introduced QUOTE | “If you can get people to talk about your brand, to talk about your product in a positive way, ultimately that’s what’s going to lead to sales.” – EA Sports VP of global marketing and brand Anthony Stevenson, explaining why the new Madden ad campaign focuses on celebrities rather than features QUOTE | “You have a lot of leaders in the industry right now who came to this with more of a focus on mechanics and systems than they did on fun.” – PlayFab CEO James Gwertzman, talking about why he started his company to handle all the back-end services for game betdog developers. STAT | 125% – Amount that new hardware sales rose sbfplay for GameStop in the last quarter, compared to last year; the company also said new software sales rose 15.6% as GameStop’s $1.73 billion in revenue beat last year’s quarter by 25% STAT | 335,000 – Number of people from 88 different countries attending this year’s Gamescom show in Cologne, Germany; the show attracted 700 exhibitors, 31,500 trade visitors and 6,000 media types Top image via Shutterstock