Dead Space Extraction is EA 'experiment' in mature content for Wii

by Randy Nelson { May 8th 2009 at 5:00PM }

In an interview with gamesindustry.biz, Glen Schofield, VP and general manager of the recently re-branded Visceral Games, said that the EA studio's upcoming Wii title Dead Space Extraction is an experiment in mature content on the platform for the publisher.

Asked how he felt given the large portion of Nintendo's userbase seemingly disinterested in mature games, Schofield remarked, "I'm confident -- it is an experiment, but there's going to be 50 million Wiis out there by the time the game comes out, so if you only hit 2 per cent of the installed base and you've got a huge number."

Schofield also pointed to other publishers' attempts at tapping this market, no matter how small it may be, while managing to work in a dig on the low overall scores of most Wii titles. "There have been some [mature games] already, Resident Evil and House of the Dead, that have done really well," he said. "So we're pushing for that 80-plus-rated game, and that'll put you in the top 5 per cent of all Wii games... because most do not have a great score."

Tags: dead-space, dead-space-extraction, ea, electronic-arts, glen-schofield, visceral-games

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

jojosh2 @ May 8th 2009 5:09PM

Too bad EA doesn't realize that rail shooters have a small audience and shouldn't represent mature games in general.

Thanatos @ May 8th 2009 5:31PM

Exactly what i was thinking.

Linkario @ May 8th 2009 5:36PM

While true, the rail shooters are some of the best games IMHO. Strangely enough, my wife even loved playing through them. House of the Head Overkill, Resident Evil:UC, Ghost Squad, etc are all worth a rent if you haven't played them. They are too short for me to recommend a purchase but very fun games.

Linkario @ May 8th 2009 5:37PM

EDIT: "some of the best games **ON THE Wii**" I meant.

sam @ May 8th 2009 6:14PM

@link: Resident Evil UC is 'short'?

Manly Mcbeefington (Mr. ESC) @ May 8th 2009 7:12PM

Uc is fukken hard and until I get the Wiimote plus I won't attempt to play it again.I barely made it through easy.

I for one I would buy it because I'm already hooked into Horror games and Rail shooters.

Moptimus Slime (Ziggy played Guitar Hero, but not Smash Hits) @ May 8th 2009 8:29PM

so, if you have a 10 hour FPS or a 10 hour Rail Shooter, I should buy the FPS and rent the Rail Shooter?

Linkario @ May 8th 2009 9:16PM

I think you people really under estimate how big of a cheap ass I truly am. I do not buy 10 hour FPS unless the multiplayer (COD for example) warrants it. $50-60 hours for 10 hours of fun... that sounds morel like a drug habit to me.

Levi @ May 9th 2009 12:49AM

He's got a point... back in high school, $50-60 would get you more than 10 hours of a good time...

XD

Dean M1 @ May 9th 2009 12:48PM

it is not totally a rail shooter because you can choose many different paths. It looks better than the others in this genre

Jinsenken @ May 8th 2009 5:12PM

2% of 50m is 1 million.

Pretty confident EA is.

THE Ezio Auditore de Firenze (PSN slycooper_rocker) @ May 8th 2009 5:14PM

looking at sales for other hardcore titles, that's a decent forecast. i suspect in the end, they'll have 3-4 million sales.

tmacairjordan87 @ May 8th 2009 5:27PM

http://cache.jalopnik.com/assets/resources/2008/06/Lowered-Expectations-Prius.jpg

You have to have them if you're going to develop for the wii. You just do.

Giroro @ May 8th 2009 5:50PM

@THE Ezio.
I've never considered on-rails shooters to be "hardcore". The story isn't usually that involved, and there is almost no choice to the player. The games are designed to be played for only a few minutes at a time and are designed around pick-up-and-play point-and-click simplicity. That is why the formula works so well (almost exclusively so) in arcades

On-rails games are casual. Violent, but casual nonetheless.
violent =/= hardcore
M rated =/= hardcore

And don't even get me started on the "core" vs "hardcore" argument

Feba @ May 8th 2009 6:18PM

Giroro, no story, very simple, not much choice?

You've just described basically every game before the SNES, as well as basically every Mario game. That doesn't mean they're not core games, that just means you don't like them.

Sir Cox @ May 8th 2009 5:16PM

Yeah they really could have did something cooler with this franchise on the wii. Oh well.

Nook @ May 8th 2009 5:15PM

Dear Ea,

As long as you're making a rails shooter, you will be missing something from me sorely. My money. See, now if you wise up and add the option of FPS or arcade mode play options, you know, you've already done this...remember Medal of Honor 2: Heroes on the Wii?

So no matter how much money you spend for good reviews and no matter how many RE fans you try to trick into giving you their government debt notes - you won't dupe me.

You have a chance here, don't fuck it up. Give a robust experience for players of all ranges. Give a product that will appeal to as many gamers as possible, because the casual base isn't going to get this off the ground for you on Wii.

You know I'm tight with the bells, so don't test me brah.

Nook

p.s. - I know you've coached your devs to not refer to this as a game that is 'on rails' - come on though - we haven't ingested THAT much fluoride yet. Please don't insult us....or we'll go right back to talking about the EA from...you know...all those years before 2006. When you sucked ass, I feel you've been giving an honest go the past few years.

take me out keyboard cat!

DaRabidDuckie @ May 8th 2009 5:37PM

"take me out keyboard cat!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J---aiyznGQ

So they're wanting a rating that's higher than 80%, but they're making a rail shooter? I don't think something's quite firing off in their heads. But oh well, here's hoping it works!

sam @ May 8th 2009 6:21PM

@Da: House of the Dead: Overkill is sitting on 79, and RE:UC is 75. So they 'only' have to make the best rail shooter for Wii and they've got an 80. That might still be a tall order, but it's not impossible given the way the best existing rail shooters have been rated.

uncle jesse @ May 8th 2009 5:16PM

While I'm not sure about how successful this will ultimately be, he does have a good point. You can't blame a Wii game for not selling just because it's a mature game. It also has to do with the quality. If this game is made well and recognized by critics/media as being a great game, it will get attention from gamers that might result in them plunking down money for it.

meist3r @ May 8th 2009 5:25PM

We're not disinterested ... we're sick of your silly low production value tie-ins and minigames crapcollections. I bought all the "bigger" titles so far especially the "mature" ones. Some were good but most of them were just ridiculously bad. I know you can't hold them to the "Next Gen" standards but even for last gen technology and gameplay what I've seen so far is pathetic for the best selling platform.

tmacairjordan87 @ May 8th 2009 5:25PM

"but there's going to be 50 million Wiis out there by the time the game comes out"

There was around 50 million when madworld came out, and that did it a whole lot of good right? Now you're expecting a rail shooter to do a ton better than that?

It's going to be fun watching the internet implode again when this ends up bombing (looking forward to the epic implosion that The Conduit will cause when it bombs too).

Mr Khan @ May 8th 2009 5:49PM

MadWorld is not bombing. Not. Its roughly doubled its first-month sales so far, and its continuing rather steadily.

Patience is needed before you make these declarations. We can speak of disappointing first-month sales, but ultimately the publisher and developer don't really care where the money comes from

tmacairjordan87 @ May 8th 2009 5:51PM

"Its roughly doubled its first-month sales so far"

So....it's finally cracked 100,000 sold? Bravo Madworld, you'll be at a million by next year at this rate /sarcasm.

Dv8thwonder @ May 8th 2009 6:51PM

@Tmac -Troll much?

intro94 @ May 8th 2009 7:09PM

actually it did, selling nearly 200k units in 2 months is way better than non hardcore high rank titles like okami did...yep,it worked.

Marty @ May 8th 2009 5:27PM

I can't wait for the day where games like Dead Space and GTA can come out for a Nintendo system without everyone making a big deal about it.

Does anyone remember back when Mortal Kombat and Wolfenstein first made their way to SNES? Man, those were the days. Gotta love the removal / recoloring of blood sprites.

Nook @ May 8th 2009 6:37PM

no doubt man. i remember playing MK on SNES and getting my ass kicked and just being like 'wow, this is so fun', and i remember going to the local arcade to play MK2 before it was on SNES.

"look, look at how real they look!"

NecronomiconUK @ May 8th 2009 5:45PM

Yeah, but Eurocom is developing this not Redwood Shores. And I'm sure they'll do as good of a job of this as the rest of the stuff they've done recently...... oh

ChromeAlchemist @ May 8th 2009 5:53PM

Yeah, I'm not buying it. Not the game I mean, I AM buying it, it's their statement.

Everyone is just saying how their game is 'an experiment for mature themed titles on Wii/DS', like GTA: Chinatown Wars, among others. It just sounds like they are trying to pull together extra sales from people who want to support said mature themed titles on Wii/DS.

Or perhaps I'm just reading too mcuh into it.

Mr Khan @ May 8th 2009 5:53PM

That's the fun of these "experimental" titles, you don't put as much work into them, because they're just experiments, and then they don't perform as well, and you declare that the experiment failed

We must move beyond this.

Insight (Fatass Defense Force) @ May 8th 2009 6:12PM

Last I checked, Khan, devs are doing just the opposite of that - putting plenty of work into great games like MadWorld and Chinatown Wars, watching them not perform well, and then saying 'Well looky here it passed expectations'.

While sales don't really matter to me (I'm in it for the fun!) and it did pass their expectations (which is great for them and kind of pathetic considering the Wii's huge install base at the same time), saying '50,000 copies sold, that's more that we thought!' doesn't do much to inspire other prospective developers, meaning we're likely not to see as many cool titles as we could have.

Moptimus Slime (Ziggy played Guitar Hero, but not Smash Hits) @ May 8th 2009 8:25PM

yeah, RedWood (NEW NAME BE DAMNED!) is really working hard on this. An "Experimental" title would be more of a Katamari or Noby Noby Boy

TwEE @ May 8th 2009 8:49PM

Insight I don't get how you can use MadWorld as a way to judge 3rd party success on the wii.

Insight what is it, in this Wii Madworld combo, that makes you think a game (madworld) that would have probably sold just as "poorly" on the ps2 (how well did God Hand do?) should be used as some sort of indicator of weather or not 3rd parties should bother with the Wii? Its a niche product and its selling to a niche crowd..

If Monster Hunter 3 (in japan at least) or that open world Final fantasy game don't sell a lot, you could point to them as proof I guess.. but to point at stuff like Madworld or Zak and wiki just doesn't make any sense to me.

Insight (Fatass Defense Force) @ May 9th 2009 12:43AM

Oh I know that the sales of MadWorld shouldn't represent all mature efforts on the Wii.

Sadly, for many developers, it's those minigame compilations that end up selling millions that represent where effort (or lack thereof) should be going in Wii development.

intro94 @ May 8th 2009 7:18PM

@insight
Well they sold already loads more than 50,000.And they keep selling...200k and way more.Way more into the big profits area(where WAW and HOTD 1 2 3 stand happily).Sure, we dont care about sales, as gamers.But they care and they are making more money than expected.Thas encouraging.For the record, previous mature games on the wii didnt sold as well,till last year.Games like Godfather struggled to get in a year where Madworld is now. A million seller like RE UC(actually is above the million), its proof of big sales(after all, plenty of decent mature games for PS3 and 360 dont perform better). And thats a good thing since we will keep getting the influx of mature oriented games for variety.Oh and CW sold over 400k so far.Which is considered very good(you dont see anyone making funny news about CW "bad"perfomance" . Since game sell over time (not in a month, i know its a shock for some), profits are reaped steadily.Give CW a year and you tell me if thats failure.Theres nothing wrong with selling a couple of millions in a year.This EA PR has reasons to be satisfied.

TwEE @ May 8th 2009 8:54PM

I have to ask.. whats CW? That that Cool World game all the kids are talking about?

TwEE @ May 8th 2009 9:09PM

I'm kinda glad this is a rail game now..These types of games, while old, still feel like they're in their infancy, theres so many weird and crazy places they could go. If developers want to experiment with, and evolve the concept of rail games by competing with each other for the attention of rail game fans, then that's cool with me.. I didn't see this happening anywhere else.

Or um.. this isnt hardcore.. grrrrr

Dv8thwonder @ May 8th 2009 9:44PM

@twee CW/Chinatown Wars

Walo @ May 8th 2009 11:21PM

I think God Hand sold around 70.000 units. On a much bigger install base. Although at the time the PS2 was flooded with quality software, and in Wii's case, there weren't much games to play.

Meloche @ May 9th 2009 12:07AM

I don't understand how people can say that GTA : CW failed on the DS. It sold almost half a million by now ; it's not bad at all!

Oh and I will buy this game. I love on-rail shooters (but FPS, not so much. Wierd I know).

Jason Statham (Aka Vegeta) @ May 9th 2009 12:41AM

Remember there are some people who believe that a game is only successful if it' sold 5 million copies first day.

t_m @ May 9th 2009 1:52AM

I agree. though of course the game's price will drop over time, so profits != sales.
I can't say i've ever bought a DS game at full price, or immediately on release though. I don't feel any urgency when buying DS games for some reason...

Levi @ May 9th 2009 12:51AM

While I really was sorely disappointed when they announced this was going to be a rail shooter, I think the idea is sounding better and better. Not better than a proper RE4 style Dead Space game, but... now that I'm getting used to it, I might get it at some point. Used. After the price goes down.

John Matrix @ May 9th 2009 1:46AM

Better than no Dead Space at all on the Wii.

t_m @ May 9th 2009 1:49AM

Have these rail shooters evolved beyond shooting yet?

I'm just imagining that these days rail shooters should be able to be so much more. Keeping them on rails is ok as it allows the devs to control the pacing and tension... but limiting them to only "shooting" makes them get repetitive quick.

It seems like they should be able to combine the rail shooter with something like the Myst 1st person adventure to make something more challenging. Mix up the shooting sections with parts where you have to solve puzzles, use items, talk to people, etc.. Introduce inventories, skills, dialog trees. Put in HL2/Zak&Wiki style physics puzzles.

Many of the best FPS games are really linear corridor shooters anyway... but they give the indication of more freedom. and they try and include a few elements other than just shooting.