They’re no longer PS3 exclusive developers after their deal with Sony ran out last year. They’re ”experimenting with digital, episodic” game projects.
”Our real strategy going forward is to change the company from a disc-based, console games company only - which is what we were, we were only PlayStation 3, we were only console, we were only quiz, in fact,” said Andrew Eades of Relentless.
The studio was behind the BUZZ! games for Sony on PS3. ”We wanted to change the company to have much more breadth and embrace the new digital platforms we saw coming in,” he continued. The Blue Toad Murder Files were episodic.
”We’d already started that, in a way, with Blue Toad Murder Files which we released in the back end of 2009. That was more than an experiment - how do we become a self-publishing developer? We were still Sony exclusive when we did that, which is why it was exclusive to PlayStation.” It’s still selling today with staggered sales.
”So we’re experimenting with digital, episodic - the interesting thing we’ve found out with Blue Toad is that, almost a year after its first launch we’re still selling it in different ways. We’ve had a sixty per cent uplift in sales through the advent calendar theme bundle pack. You can’t do this on disc,” continued Eades of the Brighton-based studio.
”You can’t have a big first weekend for a family product, you have to have a longer view. The bricks-and-mortar retail method doesn’t really work for the sort of games we want to make.” Another developer jumps the fence to digital-only but who could blame them?