APB could be turned around in 9 months

APB as we know it is dead, but Codemasters Online general manager David Solari is convinced it could be turned around - providing someone has "nine months of hard work" to spare.

"[Realtime Worlds] made some key mistakes there," Solari explained to Eurogamer. "With some key stuff changed that game could be successful.

"Somebody will... If they don't pick up the game then they will pick up the technology for sure, because the avatar and character customisation technology is incredible. Something will definitely be done to preserve that.

"I do think the game could be turned around but it would need nine months of hard work," he added. "That game could have been successful but the cost of development and everything else was a huge thing. The money it had to make to support that was very high risk. If you could take a smaller team and make all the fixes and operate at a lower cost then it's fairly unique: there's not really anything else in the market out there."

Codemasters Online was tipped to be the buyer sniffing around APB. That link came from former community manager Ben Batemen who, after being made redundant from Realtime Worlds (RIP), then joined Codemasters Online.

Solari soon put an end to that speculation.

"We have not picked up APB," he said, definitively. "I can answer you definitively," he echoed, "we haven't picked that up."

The bloated development of APB ruined studio Realtime Worlds. Crackdown's success and $100 million funding caused complacency, which resulted in a 6/10 game leaving the doors in July. Two months later, the plug was pulled on the APB servers.

In September we heard that Epic Games - creator of Gears of War and Unreal Engine - was interested in scooping up the APB remains.

The saga continues.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...nd-in-9-months