Fox News coverage of Bulletstorm, portraying the game as ‘controversial’, ”probably helped sell more” admitted Capps. He was ‘excited’ by the rallied defence.
”We got a reorder on day one from one of the big US retailers that focuses on games,” said Epic Games president Mike Capps. ”That was a pretty good feeling.”
New IP ”is really hard. I read something that less than one per cent of console games this generation launched as new IP sold a million units. So if you don’t sell a million units you lost money, basically. I’m pretty confident we’ll be on the good side of that number. I’d rather sell Gears-type numbers that’d be fantastic,” he continued.
He also addressed the Fox News reports on Bulletstorm which included questionable ‘expert opinions’ like how violent videogames caused an upswing of violent crime like rape. The studio was quite impressed with the response from the videogames press.
”There are two ways to answer the question,” Capps explained. ”The first is what it does for Bulletstorm and the second is what it does for the industry.”
”For what it did for Bulletstorm – yes, there were people who were very excited about any attention at all. For a game that’s over-the-top, they probably helped sell more units than they convinced people to pick at us.”
He said what was ”most exciting about it” for him was all the media in the industry was defending the over-the-top shooter. ”Every journalist said this Fox report is junk. It’s wonderful to see a media that’s defending free speech. As for what it does for the industry as a whole I think it’s terrible,” he added.
”There are people who really respect Fox News’ opinions and look at that” and become convinced videogames are a bad element to society. Bulletstorm released on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC last week. Did you ‘defend games’ in the wake of the Fox News piece?
