CHEAT SHEET
THE EDITOR
THE NEW GAMES INDUSTRY A BIT LIKE THE OLD GAMES INDUSTRY
T
here were two moments during Develop In Brighton that lingered
with me long after the event was fi nished. The fi rst came from PlayStation CEO Andrew House during his on-stage interview with PS4 creator Mark Cerny and MCV publisher Michael French, when he referenced the hit book/movie The Damned United. The book tells the story
of football manager Brian Clough who left his long- term assistant Peter Taylor at Derby County to go to work for Leeds, in what proved to be a disastrous 44-day spell for the now iconic football boss. Clough found success again,
but only after he reunited with Taylor at Nottingham Forest. House used the book to talk
about the need to respect the people around you and the importance of building the right team to drive the business forward – which is what he believes he has managed to do at PlayStation in his relatively brief stint as the boss. It was an interesting message
to hear, particularly when you consider that so many of those in the room were one-man independent developers without a team at all. Yet House’s comments were then followed by a talk from Nathan Vella, the CEO of Sword and Sworcery developer Capy. He cautioned against indies trying to become the next Markus Persson or Jonathan Blow (the creators of Minecraft and Braid) and instead urged
July 18th 2014
Indie developers are moving onto their second phase. Those tiny studios are now becoming slightly larger outfi ts.
the smaller studios to build a team, create a business and try to have several modest hits. The talk particularly painted the picture of independent developers moving onto their second phase, where small one-man bands or tiny outfi ts become two-man bands or slightly larger outfi ts. Couple this with the amount
of small publishers that descended upon Develop In Brighton in an eff ort to sign the next big indie game and you can see that a new industry is forming, and it’s starting to look a little like the one we only recently left behind. How long before these
slightly larger indie studios become larger still? How long before they’re then sold to EA, Activision or Take-Two? And then how long until, once all the consolidation has taken place again, we’re fed up of playing the same old games and a new indie movement is started? It appears the games industry is even more cyclical than we fi rst imagined.
Chris.Dring@intentmedia.co.uk
02
THE WEEK IN VIDEO GAM
THE FIVE THINGS WE LEARNT AT DEVELOP IN BRIGHTON
Market Data
No new games on shelves means no luck for retail this week as sales slip once again during a quiet summer
£10m £5m 9.4m 330,151 units £8.28m 319,591 units £0m £7.14m 292,324 units
Week Ending June 28th
Week Ending July 5th
Week Ending July 12th
www.mcvuk.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40