Developer Denki stated that the Xbox Live Arcade adaptation of their award-winning iOS word game Quarrel was ”rejected by almost every game publisher,” and is urging gamers to support the game. It was released today at a mere 400 Microsoft Points.
In fact, according to managing director Colin Anderson, Quarrel was originally developed as a digital console title. The lack of interest in the genre hurt the developer so badly that it was forced to restructure and lay off staff last April 2010.
According to Anderson, the rejection had nothing to do with the quality of the title, either. “Almost without exception every acquisition team we showed it to thought it was a certifiable, bankable hit - just as we did,” he revealed.
The problems came from upper management who didn’t think anyone would purchase a word game on consoles. ”The problems only started once they’d passed Quarrel up the decision tree to their finance and marketing teams - the bit more commonly known as ‘The Industry’. We heard the same justifications for passing on it over and over again ad nauseam. One signal came through clearer than any other among the general noise of reasons why Quarrel wasn’t for them, and that was this: ‘Gamers don’t buy word games’” Anderson said.
The game was released on iOS last August, and became an instant hit, earning rave reviews and winning awards.
However, Anderson worries about the game’s visibility on the Xbox 360 Marketplace, ”Whatever helps people to hear about it and not simply ignore it would be most welcomed by us. Particularly as Microsoft seems to have gone out of its way to relegate games to an afterthought in the most recent redesign of the Xbox (360) dashboard.”
Therefore, he hopes the low price of 400 MSP will entice people to give it a chance, and spread the word about the game. Anderson urges, ”Tell everyone you can about the game. Discovery remains the single biggest challenge facing original games these days by far.”
