Gameshark has just published Bill Abner’s Q&A session with Ironclad’s Blair Fraser.
If everyone is moving to the console or releasing substandard PC ports that leaves a niche for us to fill. And it’s not really important to us how small that niche is relative to the console market. That’s just about bravado, not business. The question that’s important to us is, “Are there enough people willing to pay for a high quality, PC specific real-time 4x space strategy game such that we can make a decent return on investment?”
Lots of good stuff about the game, too.
This, I don’t understand why people keep commenting on PC gaming being dead. Maybe the return on investment for a FPS with tons of art, voices, music, and cinematics can’t justify an existence on the PC alone, but these smaller titles were doing well back in the day and the PC audience has only increased with time. Quit shooting for the moon with every game, and just make good quality games that fill a need on the PC.
“PC gaming being dead” is as much a creation of North American media as it is any real factor. And NA media companies not being willing to continue publications that still had a sizable – albeit not ‘huge’ – audience of interest.
I am constantly amazed at the difference in coverage we get between North American and European media. When I visited Sweden, PC Gamer Sweden (also a Futuremark publication like PC Gamer US) did a full page interview with me – separate from our game coverage. PC Gamer US wouldn’t even meet with us during our press tour. A French glossy mag dedicated to PC Strategy games gave us almost 20 pages of coverage over two issues – and we aren’t even localized to French.
So I’m tired of the NA “PC Games are dead” lament, but I’m used to it…
“That’s just about bravado, not business.”
It’s good to hear someone say this. So many businesses seem to think the purpose is to be number one. Good to hear from someone who understands this isn’t the case.