Nothing about the newly announced JAW games, but interesting opinions from Lorne about the gaming industry and perhaps some insight into what their other upcoming projects might look like.
The Odd Couple - An interview from nowgamer.com dealing with Lorne and Sherry's history leading up to the creation of Oddworld and it's successes. The interview wraps up with some hints of OWI's future.
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when we look at the types of products that we would want to launch with Oddworld today, they would be of a different sort of classical format, rather than the, 'Here's the 30-hour story you're going to unfold through an action-adventure game.' It would be something that's more of a living ecosystem. And I don't mean that in terms of a natural simulation, but I mean in terms of a marketplace that would allow people to have much more custom configuration over their gaming experience."
"On the new landscape, you build a smaller product, you get it out there, you try and learn more from the audience quickly, and then you help the audience have a feedback loop with you. It's a more co-creative process with the audience."
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The Making of Abe's Oddysee - Another feature from nowgamer.com taking a behind-the-scenes look of Abe's Oddysee.
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Oddworld was originally to be called SoulStorm but there were a few other games coming out with ‘Soul’ in the title and it was felt it would lead to confusion. A lot of people liked the name Lanning had devised for the company: Oddworld. Although Lanning did not like the idea of having a company named after a property brand, he went along with it. “The publisher GT Interactive acquired the publishing rights on
12 September 1996 and they loved the name ‘Oddworld’, so we felt that maybe Oddworld would cut through more as the name of the game,†he said.
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Game Theory with Scott Steinberg - A new show on the changing games industry.
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"A lot of the established players (retailers, publishers) are worried. And they have good reason to be worried. People are finding experiences and products elsewhere, and different business are emerging that these large infrastructure companies aren't used to adapting to, and a lot of them won't be able to adapt to,"
"Anyone who thinks that they're deeply entrenched in an existing business model and that business model is going to sustain is fooling themselves. When we look at the top publishers, and their performance over the last couple years, I think the writing is on the wall."
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