By “It was a tough reception…”
- by Ben Kerry
Remember MindsEye? Sure, the GTA clone only launched back in June, but most players will have since scrubbed it from their memory – and it sounds as though publisher IO Interactive wouldn’t mind doing that as well.
Speaking in a recent interview with IGN, Hakan Abrak, CEO of IO, touched on the team’s first experience publishing a game outside of its own titles such as Hitman. While its new publishing arm “just wanted to help them [the MindsEye dev] distribute the game”, he admits that “it was a tough reception” – one so tough that it has made the company question whether it wants to partner up with other devs again.
“It was a tough reception. It wasn’t what they hoped for, and also what we didn’t hope for at IOI Partners. They’re working hard on turning that around to regain the trust of the gamers out there, and they have tons of potential and content they’re working on. So hopefully they’ll succeed with that in the future.
So, IO Interactive will publish our own games internally […] IOI Partners? That remains to be seen.”
This is about the time we should remind you all that the Pure Xbox take on MindsEye definitely went against the grain when we put out our hands-on impressions with the game at launch. Sure, we admitted that the story and the technical makeup of the game were a bit messy – but we had fun with the gameplay and we’ll die on that hill. It’s safe to say that we do hope MindsEye turns things around, and that IO gives this whole publishing thing another whirl.
As for what IO Interactive is developing internally right now, well, you may have seen our recent coverage on 007 First Light. The upcoming Bond title looks incredibly impressive so far, so yeah, IO looks to have its own games nailed down anyway. We’ll just have to wait and see if its IOI Partners branch ever sees the light of day again.
What do you make of these IO comments on MindsEye? Talk to us about this one down below.
[source ign.com]
Ben is a News Writer at Pure Xbox, and is a fan of action, racing and straight-up shootin’ in any Xbox game he can get his hands on. When he’s not clutching an Xbox controller like his life depends on it, Ben spends his time listening to music that’s far too old for him, watching football on the telly and probably eating somewhere.