Christmas Conquest
Fever Pitch talk about their new deal with UbiSoft
Space-bound real-time strategy game Conquest : Frontier Wars started out as one of four projects underway at Digital Anvil, but with the game falling behind schedule Microsoft decided to pull the plug late last year, saying that the project "did not progress as we had hoped it would". Soon afterwards Digital Anvil was bought out by the Washington-based publisher as cash ran short, and a new studio called Fever Pitch was set up to finish Conquest, eventually securing a publishing deal with the rapidly growing French company UbiSoft in May.
"Microsoft wanted the game for the last Christmas season, but in order for us to make the timeline outlined by them, we would have had to severely cut back on features and game play", producer Eric Peterson told German website Krawall. "Neither the team nor MS would have been happy with the results. Since MS did not want to fund us for another year, we both decided to let the team seek another publisher. We left Digital Anvil, took Conquest and began the search for a new publisher."
Since then the company has been working to "finish the game that we had always envisioned", and is currently aiming for an October release. We should have a better idea then of whether the game has been worth the lengthy design cycle and financial woes, but Eric seems to be positive about the whole experience. And the moral of this story? "Don't compromise your vision for anyone. Make the game that you want to make, and believe in the team that is making it."