Free Radical founder: "Pretty much every FPS loses money"
Nobody cares unless it's Call of Duty, says TimeSplitters man.
Almost every first person shooter released today loses money, according to the co-founder of Free Radical, the now-defunct UK studio responsible for the TimeSplitters franchise.
Speaking in an interview with Edge, Steve Ellis argued that the only series that turn a profit these days is Activision's Call of Duty and EA's Battlefield.
"Nobody really buys any FPSes unless they're called Call Of Duty," he said.
"I guess Battlefield did okay, but aside from that pretty much every FPS loses money. I mean, [look at] Crysis 2: great game, but there's no way it came anywhere close to recouping its dev costs."
Ellis also touched on the fate of TimeSplitters 4, suggesting its failure to get picked up for release was a result of publishers being too risk averse.
"I spent the whole of 2008 going round talking to publishers trying to sign up TimeSplitters 4," he revealed.
"There just isn't the interest there in doing anything that tries to step away from the rules of the genre - no one wants to do something that's quirky and different, because it's too much of a risk. And a large part of that is the cost of doing it."
As revealed last month, Ellis recently set up a new studio called Crash Lab, which is currently developing three iOS titles.