Some people are part of the gaming industry for monetary gains. Others are in it for passion. It seems Respawn Entertainment, the developer behind the highly successful Titanfall falls into the latter category. A recent exclusive interview on Gamespot revealed that the Titanfall creators aren’t interested in making a fortune, but are rather focusing on creating quality entertainment that they too can enjoy along with fans. Of course, that doesn’t mean they are not making a killing in the process. Titanfall has seen an incredibly successful launch, propelling Microsoft Xbox One sales like no other game, and quickly getting copies and bundles off the shelves. The Xbox One version of Titanfall alone sold more than 1.2 million copies since its release in March, and isn’t showing signs of stopping. Titanfall is among the best selling games on Amazon currently, and this trend can be seen at various other retailers as well.
“I don’t know if it’s making a profit, I don’t know if it’s meeting sales expectations. I don’t really care. I care that I worked on a game that I can sit down and enjoy playing. The fact that people enjoy it and it has made enough that we [get to] continue supporting it as a studio, that’s to me a success. We make games because we love them and we want other people to play them with us.” said Titanfall producer Drew McCoy, who shows a humble and passionate attitude towards developing games. Despite the humility, Titanfall selling well surely can’t be bad for the company, and certainly won’t be bad for players either. Constant support for the game is thus ensured. In fact, EA has already secured the rights to Titanfall 2, and while the project is far away, we’re sure to be seeing many sequels in this successful franchise.
Drew McCoy also went on to underline the importance of bringing originality to the gaming industry, and has advised game developers against rehashing the same formula over and over, just because it worked out well in the past. Whether or not this is a jab at games that have endless numbers behind their titles (‘cough’ Call of Duty ‘cough’) isn’t really clear, but it’s not a far-fetched notion either. McCoy also mentioned that Titanfall didn’t necessarily revolutionize the FPS genre, but rather broadened the horizons for developers, showing that some originality can go a long way in becoming successful, both financially and otherwise.
We commend Respawn Entertainment for the humble attitude shown, although we’re pretty sure the publisher behind Titanfall (EA) isn’t so keen to dismiss profitability and numbers, and is still going to push for profits. At least with Titanfall, we’re seeing that the two aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive, and it’s a breath of fresh air to see that games can make gamers, developers and share holders equally happy. If Respawn Entertainment will indeed be involved with Titanfall 2, we’re hoping they won’t sit back and milk the cash-cow and will continue to improve the gameplay experience and innovate with even more original features and elements.