David Jones of Realtime Worlds, the developer of the original Crackdown, admits he was ”a bit miffed at Microsoft” when they handed the sequel to Ruffian Games.
The studio was ready to go with Crackdown 2 but executive hesitation left them no option but to move on, leading to APB. Crackdown’s success caught Microsoft ”by surprise” he says.
”The bottom line is that what we thought would happen is that a sequel would be done by a studio somewhere… maybe one of the internal studios, or others that they’ve worked with, and that would be the way it went forward,” Jones explains to GamesIndustry.biz.
”I think it was unfortunate that it had to be with a start-up in Dundee… it is challenging to get enough developers in one region as it is, so that was the only little big of negativity to the story.”
”It’s just one of those awkward moments. In terms of the franchise, as always - as with anything we’ve created - we’re always keen to see it do great things. This is like a bump in the road… was there really no way it could have been done by one of the studios Microsoft shut down…?” he posed.
Ruffian Games comprises of ex-RTW staffers who worked on the original. ”I was a bit miffed at Microsoft that it happened that way, but you live and learn,” Jones added.
”It has such a strong following now, but it was one of those products that came out of nowhere, and I think that was indicative of some of the problems in the industry before - Microsoft didn’t quite know what it was, didn’t quite know how to market it.”
”It was one of those sandbox games, and I think the success caught Microsoft by surprise a little bit.” Ultimately the developer had to make a decision and they went with APB, which is looking to be one of the more unique and impressive MMOs to date.
