Crackdown developer Realtime Worlds wants to launch its new game, APB, next year.
"We want to launch APB in 2009, which will be pretty much worldwide - including the Asian markets. This is our first big online game", Realtime CEO (and GTA creator) Dave Jones has told Scotsman.
APB, in a nutshell, drops GTA-style gameplay into an MMO world. It's in development for PC and Xbox 360.
"If we have a big success with APB on the scale of, for example, World of Warcraft, then we could be looking at hundreds of millions of pounds. It just depends what happens after we launched it", Jones added.
It concerns me that they are chasing the WoW success. It looks to be a great game, it just spoils it a little for me.
If they get the pitch of this right both in the game and at launch then this could be a massive game. After all it is from the man that brought us Lemmings and GTA.
Getting that pitch right is going to take a lot of PR though making a lot of people aware what this game is and how it'll work. Plus MMO's on consoles haven't had the best of it so far (Final Fantasy XI and that SEGA one are the only ones I can think of) and I think it'll take a lot to convince the 360 market to pay a subscription for a game after they have already subscribed to the 360 on-line service. However, the console MMO that gets it right is going to make a lot of money.
I just can't bring myself to pay a subscription. It makes me feel like 'well I'm paying for it, so I better play it', even when there is other stuff I'd rather play.
Its just never going to appeal to me again. If they made it no subscription, but filled billboards with ads...which might actually make the game more realistic and up to date...that would be awesome.
I would love it if this became as big as WOW. Mr Jones has been a very important figure in the industry and no-one deserves the success more than he. This should be the biggest game of 2009!
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