This Week In The Business: Fortnite Has E3's Number

STAT | 125 million - Total number of Fortnite players since the game’s original launch less than a year ago.

STAT | 2 million - The number of Switch users who downloaded Fortnite in its first 24 hours of availability.

STAT | 0 - The number of Fortnite accounts that had been attached to PlayStation Network IDs that were allowed to play the game on Switch.

QUOTE | “In the past, I think these press conferences can be a bit shallow, just going from one [game] to another then another. And we were trying to give it more of a community with the themed element, particularly with The Last of Us 2 and then following into the themed areas. It was a different approach. It was about letting the games speak for themselves.” - Sony Worldwide Studios’ Michael Denny explains the thinking behind Sony’s unorthodox E3 Showcase event.

QUOTE | “The future we want to enable is that you can play amazing games, you can play with the people you want regardless of the device you’re on, regardless of the device they’re on, and you can choose to play those games on whatever device.” - Microsoft’s chief marketing officer for gaming Mike Nichols explains how the company has taken a “more gamer-centric view” this generation.

QUOTE | “Loot boxes, broadly speaking, have gotten a bit of a bad rap. The game mechanic of buying something that you’re not sure what’s inside is as old as baseball cards. What we believe at Nintendo is that a gameplay mechanic that offers the consumer something to buy that they’re not sure what’s inside can be interesting as long as that’s not the only way you can get those items. And that’s where some developers have made some mistakes.” - Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime comes to the defense of loot boxes.

QUOTE | “As we think through all that we try to do, know that we want to be better and we want to make great games.” - Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson used some of the company’s E3 briefing to talk about the publisher’s thinking around loot boxes.

QUOTE | “Yes, it’s a service. It’s a service-type product.” - Ubisoft EMEA executive director explains the games-as-a-service element of the upcoming Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey.

QUOTE | “When Microsoft approached us, it was totally unexpected and not something we were really looking to do. Nevertheless, they asked us what our goals and ambitions were as a studio in an ideal world, and so we said we wanted to free from the AAA machine and make games focused on the experience not around monetisation.” - Ninja Theory creative lead Tameem Antoniades recounts how the Hellblade studio came to be acquired by Microsoft.

QUOTE | “Ageism is a rampant problem in the game industry and within the broader technology sector, and it’s becoming even more so as first generations of game creators reach their traditional ‘retirement years.’” - Statement from Game Advocacy, a group founded by former IGDA executive director Kate Edwards that unveiled its new 50 Over 50 list this week.

QUOTE | “It’s the apocalypse. It’s not an amusement park.” - During Bethesda’s E3 showcase, Todd Howard explains why the online game Fallout 76 will let players explore worlds populated by dozens of other players rather than hundreds.

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