Ian Bell om Project Cars 3-floppen: Codemasters körde över mig

Vad man nu än tycker om den pratsugne marknadsföringsmässigt skicklige producenten Ian Belloch spelen han styrt utvecklingen av, så har han trots allt agerat dirigent för produktioner såsom GTR 2, Project Cars samt Need for Speed: Shift och när han nu satt ihop nytt team, med ny finansiering och ny personal - och avser att bogsera igång Simbins gamla GTR-arv, är det såklart många av oss som är nyfikna på vad som egentligen hände med det alldeles rekorderligt gräsliga Project Cars 3. Vid det här laget hade Codemasters köpt upp Slightly Mad Studios (för 330 miljoner kronor) och ägaren Bell hade blivit tillsagd att ta ett stort kliv tillbaka och inte lägga sig i utvecklingen särskilt mycket, detta eftersom Codemasters med Project Cars 3 bevisligen ville försöka nå en bredare "casual"-målgrupp med en mer lättkörd och arkadvänlig inriktning. Något som verkligen inte fungerade. I en nygjord intervju med Bell har han nu kommenterat detta.

Ian Bell om fiaskot som stavas Project Cars 3:
"Project CARS 3 is the one game that I didn't directly input the minutia. Every game leading up to that I was directly involved in, and would drive the car constantly, feedback constantly. But during the Project CARS 3 development, I stepped back and, once we were taken over by Codemasters, I was advised to stop being involved in the micro details completely. I'm not sure that was an overall positive. Additionally, we didn't want to call it Project CARS 3 at all. I sat around the table with twenty other people at Codemasters and openly stated that we wanted to call it Project CARS: Sideways, giving the community an indication that we're going off in a different direction, to have sort of semi-open-world areas.

The idea was that we'd go in a Forza Horizon direction as compared to Forza Motorsport. I was overruled, and I was overruled because I was told that the investors were insisting that we called the game Project CARS 3 because that's what would sell. That decision was completely against my remit, completely against my advice, and something that I didn't agree with. So that's not a game I'm proud of. And that's not a get-out, either. I did my best to try to at least change the name. I did my best to try to position it such that it would be more of Forza Horizon as opposed to a Forza Motorsport. You know, we sometimes must accept these decisions because the investors are paying insane amounts of money to make these things happen."

Vad tyckte du om Project Cars 3?

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