Your Game Industry In Your Words: Week Of December 16

[Gamasutra highlights choice quotes from game industry figures such as Stardock CEO Brad Wardell, Fez developer Phil Fish, and Blizzard veteran Paul Della Bitta in this new weekly roundup.] In our original and exclusive interviews, analysis, and feature pieces over the past week, a wide variety of developers, publishers, and indies shared their thoughts with Gamasutra about topics like the commercial viability of Xbox Live Indie Games, Blizzard-style development, and more. This Week's Noteworthy Game Industry Quotes "I think the best thing to happen to the industry is [people are] able to play games anywhere now. Actually, the best thing that happened is probably the iPad. It made gaming everywhere mainstream. And while the games aren't necessarily good, anything that makes gaming more mainstream is good for everyone [in the industry]." -- Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter "An alternate means of breaking fairness that has been turning up lately, is buying an advantage. While this can be profitable for the game's maker, it is potentially dangerous to the integrity of the game if it weakens the significance of the other forms of competition (tactics, skill, etc)." -- Badgeville's Tony Ventrice on how some social games are breaking fairness "So clearly, the indie game channel on the Xbox is a waste of time from any sort of commercial point of view." -- Stardock CEO Brad Wardell after launching Elfsquad7 on Xbox Live Indie Games "I am going to have to completely redefine myself at that point, because I feel like most of the skills that I've acquired making Fez only apply to Fez." -- Indie developer Phil Fish talks about his plans following the upcoming release of much anticipated XBLA game Fez "As women in an industry that's dominated by males, it's important for us to feel supported and that we can achieve something." -- Developer Katie Foster (The Disappearance of Emily Butler) at TIFF Nexus' recent Women in Film, Games and New Media day "The first day of Nimble's launch was one of the worst days of my life. I posted about the game on a message board and it got SHREDDED. People mocked its price, saying they would never download a game that expensive. -- Nimble Strong developer Adam Ghahramani on dealing with a seemingly identical and cheaper version of his iOS game releasing a month before his own title "The most difficult place to be, many times, is AI programming." -- IO Interactive's tech director Martin Amor "The "Cupid System" is social design at its best. It's an extensive matchmaking system that was implemented with the goal of building new relationships within the community. Players in the game are able to be randomly paired based on level, zodiac sign, and other interests, and once they're matched they can play together as a 'couple'." -- Lucent Heart producer and product manager Mark Quilter describing the MMORPG's unique features "Our mantra is: Make fun games, and business will follow. That really is the Blizzard style. Don't make a business model and fit the game into that; make the game and then the business model -- that's a bit of an opposite approach compared to what some companies are doing nowadays." -- SuperPlay co-founder and Blizzard veteran Paul Della Bitta "I couldn't see myself jumping straight back into a big company straight away. Mainly because I wanted to control my own destiny and show the world how amazingly talented our team is, since they never got to see our work." -- Gerry Sakkas on why he chose to establish mobile studio Playside instead of joining an AAA developer after Visceral Melbourne's closure The complete versions of these in-depth articles, as well as other insightful pieces, are all available in Gamasutra's pages for Exclusive items and Features.