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IO Interactive's Niels Jørgensen

The IO GM on why you can't please all of the people all of the time

Based in Copenhagen, Denmark, IO Interactive is best known for its mature titles in the Hitman and Kane & Lynch franchises - and for a brief foray into the family entertainment genre with Mini Ninjas. After laying off staff earlier this year it recently released Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days, the second title the series, which enjoyed first week chart success despite a mixed bag of review scores.

GamesIndustry.biz recently spoke with IO General Manager, Niels Jørgensen, about the effect of review scores and advertising on consumers, development budgets and why creating a love-it-or-hate-it title is okay by him.

GamesIndustry.biz Congratulations on the release of Kane & Lynch 2. It debuted at the top of the UK multi-format chart but the critical reception was mixed to say the least, how did the reviews match up with your expectations and what effect do you think they had on sales?
Niels Jørgensen

I can't talk too much about the commercial reception to the game at this stage but I was interested in how it was received by the critics and journalists. Firstly, it was always our aim to create a shooter that would stand out from the crowd.

We looked at a lot of other media and trends when were inspired to do Kane & Lynch 2, so we were looking at the YouTube-style videos that are filmed with a handheld camera and we also looked at Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield, they have a more polished finish than You Tube but the same handheld aesthetic. We wanted a style through which we could communicate authenticity and be able to draw the player in to the experience and that was the style that we chose.

I also think that the characters of Kane & Lynch capture the consumer's imagination as they are more like middle-aged anti-heroes than the buff superheroes that you see in a lot of games. Part of the legacy of IO is to make games and stories that stand out and I think we achieved that with Kane & Lynch 2.

GamesIndustry.biz It sounds like you achieved your goals, then, so to what would you attribute the discrepancy in review scores?
Niels Jørgensen

I think it's a game that you either love or hate. It's interesting that we have scores ranging from 1/10 to 9/10, so we have critics that really loved it and those that didn't really get it.

GamesIndustry.biz Does is bother you that some people didn't get it?
Niels Jørgensen

Actually, I think that's fine. I actually like the approach that you take some chances to reach out to an audience. People have different tastes in all kinds of media and we see that with music, films, books and also with videogames. It's about choosing an approach to give people entertainment and variety and I think we've been able to produce something that's a bit different, if not to everyone's taste.

GamesIndustry.biz 'Not being able to please everyone' is quite a magnanimous approach to take to such a mixed bag of review scores. Was it more important for IO to create a title with a distinct personality?
Niels Jørgensen

Yeah, I think so. I'd say that the most important thing for people to do is to try out the things that we've done by trying out our games. I'd encourage people to try the demo, always. I think it's important to form your own opinion about these products and Kane & Lynch is no exception to that.

It's difficult to get everything that you need to know from a review or article as it's difficult for words to convey how you might experience a game and so I think people should try it for themselves and decide based on their own tastes.

GamesIndustry.biz Do you think that prominent advertising is more important to a game's success than review scores?
Niels Jørgensen

Well, of course marketing is very important. The reviews are important for some people but others will just browse through the games available in a store or online and pick up whatever they think is exciting. If you look at some of the charts you'll find plenty of games in there that don't score so well on Metacritic so arguably that's a mixed thing.

Obviously you try to incentivise consumers to buy your product and advertising can help with that, especially when a purchase can be very much an impulse thing. Reviews and advertising can often reach very different people.

GamesIndustry.biz According to the Gfk Chart-Track data the proportion of sales has so far been almost 50% each for 360 and PS3 and around 2% on PC. Does PC continue to be a viable market for IO?
Niels Jørgensen

Well, I think as consumers become more diverse there's going to be the hardcore PC players and also the very causal PC players and so I certainly don't think that the PC will ever die. We deliver entertainment products and we can be available to deliver those products on whatever platform we think will be the right place to be.

The PC market is quite interesting because there's this whole discussion about the box product Vs the download, much more so that there is on the consoles. There are the suppliers like Steam and the new guys like OnLive coming up and it's going to be interesting to follow that over the coming years.

I think that there will be a market for PC but it'll be interesting to see whether that'll be boxed or download and really that's down to what the consumer is going to choose. At the end of the day the content is the most important thing and I believe that people will make their choice based on the content and not the distribution model.

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Stace Harman

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Stace Harman is a freelance writer and zombie survivalist. He writes mainly about video games but has also reported on topics ranging from airline security to Claudia Winkleman’s shoes.

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