Dev of Crackdown praises Halo 3 beta boost

Let’s face it: Realtime World’s Crackdown is an awesome game. Great plot, good graphics, insane physics plus it gives everyone their own special moment in the game.

Now much of its success may be due to the interest of gamers in the Halo 3 beta passes available in every copy of Crackdown sold in the U.S., in Japan, and even in the UK. But having played the game, I’d say it does have its own reasons why it is successful on its own accord.

So you wouldn’t be surprised when David Jones, developer of the successful Crackdown, happened to say, “It’s really scary to think you could make a really great game that nobody has ever heard about.”

Although he may not be familiar to many gamers, he is the developer of the Lemmings game for the PC, not to forget his oversight on the development of Grand Theft Auto and Grand Theft Auto 2.

More on what Jones had to say at the Full Article!

Let’s face it: Realtime World’s Crackdown is an awesome game. Great plot, good graphics, insane physics plus it gives everyone their own special moment in the game.

Now much of its success may be due to the interest of gamers in the Halo 3 beta passes available in every copy of Crackdown sold in the U.S., in Japan, and even in the UK. But having played the game, I’d say it does have its own reasons why it is successful on its own accord.

So you wouldn’t be surprised when David Jones, developer of the successful Crackdown, happened to say, “It’s really scary to think you could make a really great game that nobody has ever heard about.”

Although he may not be familiar to many gamers, he is the developer of the Lemmings game for the PC, not to forget his oversight on the development of Grand Theft Auto and Grand Theft Auto 2.

Jones had to express the anxieties that came with developing a really good game that has a slightly obscure name and nowhere near popular, and then having that released to very picky gamers. So he explained the options he considered in order to market the game, including the Halo 3 beta ticket marketing idea.

“The game does not look good in screenshots,” Jones asserted. “That is probably the biggest thing I’ve struggled with.” He was afraid that no one would give the game a chance and find out that it looked much smoother and much more attractive up-close and personal.

His fears were confirmed when he checked focus groups on their thoughts of the game. After the first several minutes, they didn’t get the game. It’s because at first, the game character is pretty much like any other superhero character in games.

But the longer they played, the more they began to see how much their character improves in superhuman abilities. It finally dawned on Jones what he had to do. He had to make sure gamers got a copy of one and tried it. Gradually, the gamers would see the potential and by word of mouth, it will finally get the recognition it was made for.

“We kind of knew Crackdown would need as much help as it could get to get into players’ hands,” Jones said. “Like we’ve always said: It’s a game player’s game. It’s not something that’s going to sell in screenshot. So that was good.” To prove a point, he employed demos with “rigged skills” that allowed the character to develop skills faster than the real game, so that gamers can experience the “good stuff” faster than the focus groups did. He also sent out a few gameplay videos to show the game’s potential.

“Really the crux of the whole game design was, ‘How do we reward somebody for just having fun?’,” he said. Well, he more than answered that question.

Via MTV News