LittleBigPlanet was one of the most acclaimed games of 2008, but some felt the sales of the game weren't what they could have (or should have) been. Media Molecule's Alex Evans spoke to GI.biz about how competition might have hurt the game's sales in the short run.
"It came at a time when there was a glut of games, which was really amazing for gamers - if they could afford it - but in terms of us eking out space in the market LBP is definitely an evergreen title," explained Evans. "I think it came out at the right time, because I didn't want it to come out any later. We stayed in the charts a lot longer than a lot of games would, and that's a really good thing."
"As part of the original deal with Sony, it's in the contract that we want to have an ongoing support model for the game, so the release was like the big bang, with retail behind it and everything else, but our whole mindset from the beginning was that's how you see the audience - you have to keep plugging away. By that argument, the sooner you get it out, the better," he said, adding, "If I did it differently, I'd probably take out all of the other amazing game developers in the world, so there was less in the pipe."
While Evans was unwilling to confirm that LittleBigPlanet 2 is in development, he did make some interesting comments with regards to digital distribution. "We're getting on for two million levels that have been published now. If you look at online distribution for LBP, when the sequel comes along, what do we do with all that content? I think we can give consumers lots of stuff that you couldn't in a traditional game. We can give them backwards compatibility with those levels, and then when you decide on how you're going to sell that to them... all I'm saying is that we've got loads of options open to us, and we can pick really late. We can make them in a year's time, or whenever we want to ship - and that's really useful for a developer, you can make a fine grain decision about what the price point is, or how you dice it."
While it may not have been the best selling game last year, IndustryGamers knows a few people who bought a PS3 strictly for the game and it was one of the more genuinely creative titles of 2008. We can't wait to see what Media Molecule does next.
2 Comments
July 8, 2009
I might be wrong here, but I believe that if LittleBigPlanet was a multiplatform game Media Molecule would have made millions of dollars more. Especially if that game was released on the Wii. Much of the Wii audience appreciates games such as LittleBigPlanet.
July 8, 2009
I agree nikos. I pretty much made that point in my initial Sony op-ed.