Interview Tom Ohle interview at Gamasutra and some other witchery stuff

[Ausir]

Tags: CD Projekt; Tom Ohle; Witcher, The

<a href=http://www.gamasutra.com>Gamasutra</a> has <a href=http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=18339>interviewed Tom Ohle</a>, <a href=Http://www.cdprojekt.com>CD Projekt RED</a>'s VP of Marketing, about <a href=http://www.thewitcher.com>The Witcher</a> and game marketing in general.<blockquote><b>What is coming in the future for CD Project Red?</b>
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First up for the team is The Witcher: Enhanced Edition. For anyone who doesn't know, we're basically going back and improving on every aspect of the game that was criticized at launch: we're reducing load times by about 80%, rewriting some of the English dialogue that didn't quite sound right, re-recording voice-overs where needed, adding lots of new NPC models, putting in new animations to make dialogue look better and a bunch more. We'll be replacing the existing box at retail with the new version and packing it with soundtrack CDs and other goodies, and we'll release it all online as a mega-patch for anyone who already bought the game.
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CD Projekt recently announced that it had claimed a majority stake in Metropolis Software. We'll be working closely with the team there to make sure their sci-fi first-person shooter, THEY, is an amazing game when it hits the market next year.
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We also announced The Witcher: DuelMail, which is a fun little browser game that's a touch addictive. I suggest people check it out for a fun lunchtime diversion... that ends up making you late for your afternoon meetings.
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The Witcher is really our core brand right now, and we want to keep it relevant for a long time. That doesn't mean The Witcher 2009 with new roster updates or a Geralt plush toy (though that would be cool), but inevitably we'll look to continue the series. We have a lot of opportunities -- expansions, sequels, console versions -- and now it's just a matter of deciding what's best for The Witcher and for gamers.</blockquote>
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You can read the rest of the interview <a href=http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=18339>here</a>.
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In other Witchery, but non-RPG news, <a href=http://witcher.wikia.com/wiki/Andrzej_Sapkowski>Andrzej Sapkowski</a>'s <a href=http://witcher.wikia.com/wiki/The_Last_Wish>The Last Wish</a>, the first book in the <a href=http://witcher.wikia.com/wiki/Witcher_series>Witcher Series</a>, has just been released in the United States by Orbit. Also, the official premiere of <a href=http://duelmail.thewitcher.com>The Witcher: DuelMail</a> browser game has been delayed, but you can still play the open beta version for now.
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Spotted at: <A HREF="http://gamebanshee.com/news/static/EkpAyZlkVAkJUgbkWE.php">GameBanshee</A>

 

[fastpunk]

Seems like a smart guy. This little bit was quite interesting:

I just wrapped up my work with Stardock, and one of the things I admire most about Brad and his team is that they’ve fully embraced the fact that piracy doesn’t have to be as big a deal as it’s made out to be. Yes, games will get pirated. This is purely speculative, but I don’t think that most people who pirate games are potential consumers anyway; if they couldn’t download your game for free, they’d just go pirate someone else’s.

Now, I’m not saying piracy isn’t an issue at all; it’s just that if you make games for a PC audience, you can still be successful. Look at Sins of a Solar Empire as a great example of that; The Witcher and Crysis are two other examples. Yes, the games were pirated, but they still sold well. If piracy didn’t exist, do we really believe that Crysis could have sold 5 million copies or something? Would Witcher be a 3-million-seller? I’m not sure about that.

Seems we're not the only ones annoyed by the whole "pirates stole my success" trend. Actually, the whole answer from which the above fragment was takes is quite interesting. Good read overall!

 

[Dandelion]

It's incredibly good he worked with Stardock (I just love those guys and their galactic civilization II is really a jewel) and agrees with their view on piracy.

Seems we're not the only ones annoyed by the whole "pirates stole my success" trend. Actually, the whole answer from which the above fragment was takes is quite interesting. Good read overall!

Yep..and I find curious he mentioned Crysis as an example of good sales in the PC market: just some days ago I came across this interview with the Crytek president:

http://www.pcplay.hr/modules.php?r=23

PC Play: How do you estimate the current state of the PC gaming industry? Some say that it's only a matter of time when it's going to finally die-off, the others say that "the big one" is only getting its comeback pace.
Considering Crysis is a PC-exclusive title, what do you think of its market reception and its future? Skeptics would say that it's pretty risky going PC-exclusive with such a high-profile title.

Cevat Yerli: It is certainly. We are suffering currently from the huge piracy that is encompassing Crysis. We seem to lead the charts in piracy by a large margin, a chart leading that is not desirable. I believe that’s the core problem of PC Gaming, piracy. To the degree PC Gamers that pirate games inherently destroy the platform. Similar games on consoles sell factors of 4-5 more. It was a big lesson for us and I believe we wont have PC exclusives as we did with Crysis in future. We are going to support PC, but not exclusive anymore.

..so in his opinion Crysis didn't perform enough sales because of piracy.

Others interesting bits from the first interview:

Instead of spreading all of your info reveals and assets over a two-year campaign, you condense the best info into a six-month blitz. I think media would appreciate the opportunity for larger stories with more new info, and fans would appreciate the fact that they're not getting spoonfed the same info and screenshots from different angles all the time.
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If anything, I think there's just a general perception that you need as much time as possible to get the game in front of as many potential consumers as possible. Retailers determine their order quantities based on pre-orders, and it's basically assumed that you need to build up a ton of hype over a long period of time to convince people to put down their money before release.