Realtime Worlds 'A Bit Miffed at Microsoft' Over Crackdown 2

The first Crackdown was an early hit on the Xbox 360, and catapulted developer Realtime Worlds Studios into into the spotlight.  After it was confirmed that the developer would be working on APB instead of a sequel, reports began to circulate that the duties for Crackdown 2 had been handed over to start-up Ruffian Games.

Several employees of Realtime Worlds helped found Ruffian, including Crackdown lead designer Billy Thomson, which would seemingly make the company a natural choice to field the Crackdown sequel in lieu of Realtime Worlds.  However, at the time when such an arrangement was only rumored, Colin MacDonald of Realtime Worlds passive-aggressively issued a statement saying among other things that he would "very much doubt that Microsoft would harm an otherwise fruitful existing development relationship by gambling on funding Crackdown 2 with a start-up on RTW’s doorstep, for obvious reasons."

Now that Crackdown 2 has been confirmed with Ruffian at the helm, Realtime Worlds CEO David Jones is letting the world know that his company still isn't happy with the development.  

"The bottom line is that what we thought would happen is that a sequel would be done by a studio somewhere... maybe one of the internal studios, or others that they've worked with, and that would be the way it went forward," he told GI.biz. "I think it was unfortunate that it had to be with a start-up in Dundee... it is challenging to get enough developers in one region as it is, so that was the only little bit of negativity to the story.

"It's just one of those awkward moments. In terms of the franchise, as always - as with anything we've created - we're always keen to see it do great things. This is like a bump in the road... was there really no way it could have been done by one of the studios Microsoft shut down...?"  he continued. "I was a bit miffed at Microsoft that it happened that way, but you live and learn."

Jones went on to indicate that Realtime Worlds was always open to doing a Crackdown sequel, but that a delayed response from Microsoft compelled them to work on APB. "We were always ready to start work on the sequel, and get cracking," said Jones, "But one of the big problems facing developers is that you have to know what you're working on about four or five months before your project ends - so at that point we tried to have a discussion, get things kicked off... but in the end we decided to plough ahead with APB."

We have to think that there's some personal hang up between Realtime Worlds and Ruffian, maybe a bit of sour grapes over why certain people left the company- getting angry that another company was handed the reigns of a franchise you don't own doesn't make sense otherwise.