What do I mean by Winter? Well, I'm not talking about the actual season. More so, I am talking about a game that IGN just showed today that, apparantly, is on hold.
http://wii.ign.com/articles/946/946492p1.html
The game was developed by N-Space, the people behind Geist and the Call of Duty games for DS. The game is a survival horror game, more in the vein of Silent Hill rather than games like Resident Evil. The game was first shown at GDC in 2007 and had some positive feedback based on what it presented. So, it's been almost two years, and why is it on hold?
Well, get a load of this: Publishers, thought that putting a "mature" game on what they perceived as a "kids" console was a risk not worth taking, not to mention publishers don't wanna have new IPs.
What the f***? Did Red Steel not come to their minds? What about RE4 or Unbrella Chronicles, not to mention No More Heroes (while wasn't a million seller) was very decent in sales. There ARE people who own a wii and support these kinds of games.
Look at the Conduit. That came from devs who thought the system was in need of a game for the core audience. They started doing it without a publisher, news caught on, the entire community supported it, and Sega noticed the potential and they've secured the publishing rights. Sega, while a sub-par developer now, looks to be delivering a trio of great core games, including the Conduit, House of the Dead Overkill, and Madworld.
Just seeing this game from N-Space get refused by ignorant publishers can only make you think how many other games for the core were canned as well. That's a pretty sad thought, if you ask me.
Now, this game, Winter, is catching onto the community as well. Plus, within the first hour of the article being posted, a petition has been started, and I say it's very damn well worth a shot.
http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?wiinter
There's over 300 signatures already in the first day, THAT'S how much of a deal this means.
*update: as of this edit, over 2000 signatures have already accumulated*
If you care, please, sign the petition. It may come a long way, and these kind of games need to find a place on the system.
/blog