Bizarre first-person brawler Zeno Clash didn’t sell as well on Xbox Live as it did on the PC, and the developer thinks it’s because PC gamers have a higher tolerance for weirdness.
Last year’s indie fantasy-world brawler Zeno Clash was very strange, but it wasn’t half bad. It was an astoundingly original game, and its developer ACE Team hoped to port it to consoles – which it did, with the help of Atlus.
Unfortunately, the game just didn’t sell as well on XBLA, ACE Team co-founder Carlos Bordeu told Eurogamer. “I don’t know whether it was because most people had already played Zeno Clash on PC, or that the console game launched a year later, but we definitely had much stronger sales on PC than on Xbox 360,” he said. “It hasn’t sold nearly as well.”
Barring the reason mentioned, Bordeu had another theory: The game was so strange that it put would-be buyers off. “Zeno Clash was definitely weirder than most games, and it would be absurd to think that didn’t put-off some people,” he said. “PC players are maybe more open to trying weird games – games that aren’t so mass market.”
“But I don’t know that I’d put it as harshly as PC gamers are smart and console gamers are stupid,” he amended in a possible attempt to foil a potential flame war.
Of course, even within the PC gamer spectrum there were differences – Bordeu pointed out that the game had sold especially well in Russia. I don’t think that he’s implying that all Russians are weird, but you never know.
