Activision’s producer on sci-fi timeshift FPS Singularity says that it is “absolutely critical” for the game to have a demo to woo would-be buyers.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one: Singularity is a sci-fi FPS that features a military protagonist who has the power to manipulate time. Sound like a FPS you’ve played recently? Sound like every FPS you’ve played recently?
The sci-fi FPS market is one that became saturated a long time ago – and nobody knows that more than the folks at Raven Software who are developing Singularity in the first place. Yet Kekoa Lee-Creel, the game’s producer, thinks that Singularity‘s time-based gameplay – that gives the main character powers to speed up or rewind time on specific objects – will sell itself to gamers … as long as they try it first.
“The shooter market is saturated, it’s tough to break in right now when there’s a lot of great, well-established franchises,” Lee-Creel told Develop. “We’re definitely on track to release a demo … That’s absolutely critical. It’s so hard to convey how a game feels, but I have confidence that once we can cross that threshold I think we’re good.”
I have to confess, the sentiment is almost refreshing. More games should have demos. Demos are a good thing. For one, they totally negate the excuse pirates throw out about wanting to try a game before you buy it.
At any rate, I wish Raven Software luck. If they can set themselves out from the increasingly-generic pack, they’ll probably be more successful by showing how fun it is to make enemy soldiers instantly age and decompose to dust, rather than telling.
