28 Jul, 2010
In an interview with Videogamer, Dr. Greg Zeschuk (co-founder of Bioware) has discusses sales figures, their relationship with EA as well as their previous release schedule.
While some may percieve Bioware titles as achieving good sales, Zeschuk states that a sales hit for the company is selling 10 million units. Even though Bioware’s games usually hit the top 10 of games charts and are critically well recieved, Zeschuk states that people will proclaim this a hit even though other games will sell 25 million units compared to them selling a few million. However, he also states that while reviews themselves are not always reflective of ever player’s experience and while a good review will not always result in a game selling well, they can have a positive impact:
I think actually what they do is that they indicative of the word of mouth you might get. If you can get a reviewer excited, the jaded, played-it-all person, if you can get them really excited about the game, that probably implies that other people will feel the same and they’ll tell each other.
The company sees alot of investment and support from their publisher EA, who have published Dragon Age and Dragon Age Origins, Mass Effect on PC, Mass Effect 2 as well as upcoming titles in both series.
…we always know that we’re super-fortunate that we have a nice combination of things going on – really great support from EA, a budget to make great big giant games. We recognise that in a sense it’s a privileged position we’re in.
It’s also interesting to see that Bioware is focusing on release schedule which allows gamers to have an experience which will allow them to make the most of their titles, as they admit the close release dates between Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2 where too close together. However, they also admit that this would allow them more time to work on each title, rather than having to work on multiple projects with a similar release date. This will allow for less pressure and putting more concentration into a particular project. This was experienced when Dragon Age’s code was finished in October, Mass Effect 2′s was completed around mid-December. This makes it seem likely that Bioware will continue to work on a maximum of two projects at the same time.
I’m a big fan of Bioware’s previous releases, and I am very excited about their upcoming releases. I am excited to see they are continuing a to put the quality of their titles ahead of accelerating game releases, particularly while in the current market companies may choose to accelerate popular titles as a way of increasing revenue.
Source: Videogamer via gamesindustry.biz
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