Capcom: PSN and XBLA "still in their infancy"

via Games Industry


Capcom's director of production Adam Boyes has said that online console gaming via the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade are still in their infancy.

The company recently canned its digital title Talisman - based on the Games Workshop table top game - with Boyes citing the difficulty of replicating the close social interaction users experience when playing board games.

"We looked at the other games on XBLA and PSN and realised that very few people were willing to sit and play a game for more than an hour. With a regular Talisman match coming in between three-to-five hours, this created an issue with how we would make the game fun and engaging for that whole time," offered Boyes, speaking to Giant Realm.

"This brings us one thing that we again failed to realise as PSN and XBLA were still in their infancy. Complex board games like Talisman live and die on the social interaction of people."

"If the people in your match aren't going to use their headsets, the social aspect of a board game gets completely drained and becomes a slog as you could be sitting there for five minutes waiting for your next turn," he added.

However, Boyes does agree that board and card games can succeed on PSN and XBLA, where gameplay isn't so time consuming, and Capcom is still open to bringing such product to the services.

"I think both board games and card games are great opportunities to create bite-sized experiences for the average XBLA and PSN player. I review hundreds of pitches and we will never close the door to developing a board game or card game that fits our user base."

The rights to create a game based on the Talisman board game have now reverted back to Games Workshop.

Too bad, Talisman was a great board game. Their reasons for canning the video game are fair but they are also obvious and should have been thought of before development even began. They should have made it real time, the game is perfect for it.

There's many things they could have done to not require more than 1 hour sessions.