Blur and Split/Second were "too formulaic" say Codemasters
Acti and Disney needed to be more adventurous
Codemasters F1 2010 chief game designer Steven Hood believes the relatively poor sales of Blur and Split/Second were down to over-familiarity and formulaic design.
The two racers were released in May this year to a tepid commercial response. Blur in particular struggled, shifting just 31,000 units in its first five days in the US, substantially down on publisher Activisions expectations.
Hood told this publication: "I mean, I hate criticising other developers, but they almost felt a little too formulaic. What you always have to remember is that you have new people coming into games all the time. In the case of Blur and Split/Second I think they were very similar to each other, and it hurt their sales."
"I think that's one reason why Sony's Formula One series declined over time. People felt like they have the same kind of game every year. And that's why we are trying to do something different with this one. We set ourselves the challenge of, what new themes can we add to it? What differentiates a Formula One game from a normal track racer? We tried to identify those things."
"So maybe Blur and Split/Second needed to be a little more experimental."
Read the full interview here and look out for our review of F1 2010 later in the week.
