Time Extend - Beyond Good and Evil

Edge Online is running a feature from the print version of Edge (in my opinion one of the finest gaming publications available) entitled Time Extend. This monthly feature rewinds the clock to look at a fantastic game from yesteryear. The Christmas Time Extend covers the well reviewed but underselling Beyond Good and Evil. Topical, as Michel Ancel also headed up the well reviewed console game based on Peter Jackson's King Kong. From the article: "So what was it about the adventures of an elfin lighthouse-keeper that made Jackson think Ancel could tame a two-ton gorilla? On the surface it seems a peculiar choice, but while Jade and Kong could hardly be more different, it was exactly because of what Ancel had accomplished with his heroine that Jackson was interested in the first place."

Comments

Re:And here I was

[Phisbut]

Having worked on the Beyond Good and Evil project at Ubisoft, I can tell you that the game was originally supposed to be a trilogy (which explains the pretty weird ending, leaving something for the sequel). What came out of development was a very good game (as the few who played it know), which has sometimes been refered to as "like Zelda, but not from Japan".

However, marketing for the game was awful, the game was barely announced, and very few people actually knew what the game was about. Therefore, the game didn't sell well *because* of bad marketing. Unfortunately, we all know how game companies know their stuff... following the BGE fiasco, the marketing dept just kept on going advertising Splinter Cell and the lead programmer from Beyond Good and Evil got demoted. Yep, you read it right: he got demoted for making a great game...

That killed the trilogy. When the first game of a serie doesn't sell well, Ubi doesn't invest in a sequel, no matter why the first didn't sell.