Six years after the games release, Oddworld creator Lorne Lanning has accused EA of “sabotaging” 2005 action game Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath for the original Xbox.
In an interview with Eurogamer, Lanning claimed, ”Stranger was a major achievement… I’m ‘thrilled’ EA did such a crappy job distributing it back in the day. It’s a title that hasn’t been exposed to the world. My personal feeling is Stranger was the best game we ever made.
“It was sabotaged. When you see a big game coming out, just ask what the marketing budget is. If you decide as a publisher not to give it a marketing budget, you decide its fate. As soon as we understood there was no marketing budget, we had zero expectations. We had zero incentive to build another game for them, either.”
”Our story is not unique,” Lanning added, “This is common in the development community. Business decisions are made and the developer’s faucet is turned off as a result.
“In the case of Stranger, it didn’t perform because it wasn’t exposed and it wasn’t distributed and there wasn’t the number of factors that go to what you need to have success on the shelf today as a boxed product.”
The game is being remade by UK developer Just Add Water for launch on PlayStation 3 this summer. An Xbox 360 version will be developed pending a meeting between Lanning, Just Add Water and Microsoft. However, Lanning and Just Add Water aren’t stopping with the remake - they plan on starting an entire, revitalized Oddworld-branded game line.
”(The original Abe’s Odysee) on PSN sold hundreds of thousands of units last year,” Lanning continued. ”No marketing. No advertising. Just people telling their kids to play it, saying, ‘I played this when I was a kid. I loved this game. I want you to play it here.’
“There’s a whole new generation of people who are picking up on that. I see that’s going to happen with Stranger, too. That’s just a question of us making sure it’s on the right platforms.
“On the digital distribution landscape, when that game is offered at a much lower price on the PlayStation 3, people will really enjoy it. It’ll get this second wind of life, where it will be easily accessible and not governed by if Wal-Mart decided to stock it or not.
“Anyone who wants it can log on and get it. If you have a PSN account you’ll be able to get it. That’s a huge game changer.”
Electronic Arts, of course, refused to comment on Lanning’s claims.