EA’s Frank Gibeautold CVG (opens in new tab)that the company is “very cognizant” of its back catalog.
“I worked on Desert Strike and Road Rash back in the day on Sega Genesis, so trust me – I’m familiar with the IP history,”said Gibeau.
Where does that leave fans of Wing Commander, Road Rash, Magic Carpet, or any other fondly remembered series?
“When looking at a new bet, a new investment to make, we always look at whether we should create a new IP, bring one back or have something in active growth right now that we can double down on,” he said.
“So we constantly look at ways to grow the recent category of titles like Burnout, Need for Speed, Road Rash – these are things we constantly think about. It’s the same thing with the old Bullfrog IPs like Dungeon Keeper, Populous, Powermonger, Magic Carpet… I can go on. So we do look at that stuff and are very cognizant of our past.”
But don’t get your hopes up too high, warns Gibeau, because many of those ‘classics’ aren’t actually as good as you remember. Production values are higher and even basic game mechanics are quite different today.
“The key thing for us is, if we do bring [any of those] back, the game has got to be good. I don’t know about you, but when I look back at GoldenEye, I think of it as this amazing game and then you go and play it and are like, ‘Oh. Really?.’ From our perspective, we have to manage that element which makes things look nicer in the rearview mirror compared to what you have to do now in the modern day.”
[Source:CVG (opens in new tab)]Mar 28, 2011