In an interview teaser (yes, one of those) published over on Edge, Free Radical Design co-founder and the man responsible for trying to get Timesplitters 4 signed up, Steve Ellis, has spoken out about the first person shooter genre.
“I spent the whole of 2008 going round talking to publishers trying to sign up Timesplitters 4,” he says, pretty much confirming that the game is never going to come out.
“There just isn’t the interest there in doing anything that tries to step away from the rules of the genre – no one wants to do something that’s quirky and different, because it’s too much of a risk. And a large part of that is the cost of doing it.”
“Nobody really buys any FPSes unless they’re called Call Of Duty,” he added. “I guess Battlefield did okay, but aside from that pretty much every FPS loses money. I mean, Crysis 2: great game, but there’s no way it came anywhere close to recouping its dev costs.”
Battlefield shifted twelve million to retail, so probably did a little better than “okay”, but he does have a point – Call of Duty (the latest of which we previewed today) has become almost ubiquitous, as if there’s literally nothing else around that comes close in terms of sales.
Ellis recently founded Crash Lab, and has two iOS games in the making.
Shakugan
So…do we blame Call of Duty/Battlefield series for making other FPS games die?
Boomshanks
:'( my heart gently weeps
LTG Davey
It pains me to think that the guy behind the excellent Timesplitters series thinks Crysis2 was a ‘great game’.
Bilbo_bobbins
Well if people made a decent FPS then people would buy it. Battlefield is a good example, and Killzone 2. Any other FPS I’ve played have just been crap, Crysis included.
The Lone Steven
Halo, Bioshock, and BF say hello. COD is an anomly so therefore, i believe every developer should not be trying to copy it in order to achieve the same amount of sales as all it does is fill the FPS market up with COD clones and damages the genre as a whole.
I think an excellent and unique FPS will sell well in the overfilled market as people are starting to get fed up with seeing the same game. Sure, it won’t outsell COD but as long as it sells well, that is what should only matter, from a sales point of view.
Bulletstorm was the biggest breath of fresh air and i think sold fairly decent, had EA not canned the sequel, they may have been able to create a franchise that entices traditional FPS players away from other COD clones.
Plus,most of the time, the risk pays off. For example, Journey sold well.