Watchmen Dev Bankrupt – explains games pricing

When we reviewed Watchmen: The End is Nigh earlier this year, along with countless others, we bemoaned the price tag as being poorly balanced against the games repetitive nature and the value it offered. With Star Trek DAC announced in March, we speculated that the downloadable platforms might be embraced as as a lucrative area for the dreaded movie tie-in.

Perhaps not, because it’s sad news that developer Deadlight has gone bankrupt just before E3. Gaming site 1Up interviewed the Swedish dev just before this was announced and have now posted their interview online. The comments in it make for interesting reading.

Studio Director Søren Lund says Warner Brothers were behind the ridiculous pricing of the title.

“I think it’s a shame that Warner priced it at $20 — it should’ve been max $15, ideally $10. But hindsight is 20-20, so it’s easy to say now. I think this was the first digital distribution title for Warner, so they also didn’t have any previous knowledge as to what would be the right price point.”

It’s hard to agree that Warner’s lack of experience on the digital distribution front is an excuse, especially since Warner Interactive have been publishing titles for some years now and should know the lay of the land. But it does confirm that it’s not always a simple case of Microsoft / Sony et al deciding the price, which a lot of the critics would like to believe,

It also appears that Deadlight were given no indication of how the game has been selling.

“I don’t know how much it sold — I haven’t been told yet how much it has sold”

Lund is optimistic that Warner Brothers will learn from this and adjust accordingly. The second Watchmen release is due to coincide with the films DVD / Blu-ray release next month. The game is literally more of the same, with the same two main characters and same repetitive brawling, so it’ll be interesting to see if Warner Brothers actually have taken a step back  – although the damage may already have been done with the first title resulting in people staying away no matter what they do.

These points highlight how hamstrung dev’s can be when taking on movie tie-ins and, in this instance, it’s clear that working on a downloadable title is still just as laced with pitfalls as a full retail release. Lund goes on to explain the problems they had when making the title and it makes for interesting reading so be sure to check out the full thing at the link below.

Source: 1Up