No more 1943? What?
For now! Right now we're focused on Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and we don't want to stretch the team too thin. We're not in between projects like we were when we made 1943 – that game came out of timing, logistics and resources.
How will 1943 fit in with boxed releases in the future? Was it deemed a success?
Oh it was absolutely a success. A lot of people didn't think it would be as successful as it was. It was a big surprise for them. Meanwhile, I was surprised that they were surprised – I was like, this is going to be the shit!
But a lot of people overlooked it because of the business model. "Oh, it's an Arcade game. People don't really buy that many games on XBLA. The highest one sold just this amount." And so on. I was like, well, we're going to sell more. But I understand firstperson gamers. I not only work in a company that makes those titles, but – and I know this sounds like one of those Hair Club For Men commercials – but I get in there and play. I know what I want as a consumer of firstperson shooters, and I knew I'd love a small game that I could jump into real quick and that was accessible.
I think we nailed the point of why someone would buy it on Arcade rather than a full title. We had a limit on the file size and so we had to be smart about what we could deliver without diluting the experience. I mean at first we were limited by Microsoft to 350 Mb. Luckily they raised that during the development. But I think it was so successful because we didn't force that game, and it came out of a lot of creativity and experimentation in between projects. When you're in between projects parts of your team can get very dry, and they don't have all that much to do. Give 'em something fun to do and flex their creativity.
There's a lot of cool stuff that came from our artists for that game that have since been applied to our other games – lighting effects and water reflections. We gave them a fun time to create something without the pressure of having to be a blockbuster title. From that we just stumbled into the success. Now I guess that there is that pressure! Our executive producer [Karl Magnus Troedsson ] is smart, though – he's a gamer too – and the question is when we can deliver something like 1943 that will feel good and not weighed down with the pressure of being a blockbuster.