This Week in the Business_ When Ads Go Bad

What’s happened in the business of video games this past week … QUOTE | “They’re using words like amateur, crass, gross, disgusting … nothing that all yono rummy you’d want your brand associated with.”—A veteran game marketing executive describes the widespread negative response to Ouya’s ‘vomiting gamer’ ad QUOTE | “The handheld market, in terms of the media and press you read, is definitely the red-headed stepchild.”—Dan O’Leary, n-Space CEO, discussing the difficulties of independently developing for Nintendo and Sony STAT | 16 million—Number of times that Plants vs. Zombies 2 has been downloaded on iOS in less than y1 games latest a week; EA says more than 25 million hours have already been logged with their most successful mobile launch evercnx.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":"1193169152","POST_TYPE":"post","CHANNEL":"culture","SECTION":"","SUBSECTION":"","CATEGORIES":"culture","TAGS":"","NOP":"0"},"timeBeforeFirstAd":0}}}).render("cnx-player-main")}); QUOTE | “All the coolest demos we’ve seen in VR have been from indie developers, not established ones.”—Palmer Luckey, founder of Oculus VR, who says indies take all the “crazy risks” with the Rift headset QUOTE | “I fear somewhat for the blockbuster.”—CI Games creative director Raphael van Lierop says spending $100 million to develop a new IP is just too risky for most publishers STAT | 11%—Amount that GameStop sales dropped in betdog the three months ending in July, compared to the same quarter last year; GameStop is expecting sales to be up this quarter by 11-15% due to GTA V and other releases QUOTE | “You’re more predisposed to try something, whereas when you’re on the PC, you might get distracted by, say, Facebook or something.”—John Smedley, president of SOE, on the advantages of free-to-play on consoles STAT | 600,000—Number of unique broadcasters per month on Twitch, from console and PC; the streaming game video service also has over 38 million viewers per month This Week in the Business courtesy of GamesIndustry International Image by Andrey Shandin | Shutterstock