Hutch Games: App Store is a democratising situation

February 18th, 2012, 23:56 Posted By: wraggster

The team behind indie start up Hutch Games have shared the decision making process that saw its gang of five developers leave Sony to develop iOS titles independently.
"We had had a project cancellation," art director Whill Whitaker told Eurogamer.
"It was an inciting incident. It was just very exciting for us to realise we could do something on Unity. The App Store allowing you to self-publish is a very democratising situation. We were all motivated to take accountability for our own destiny. It was a very exciting thing to try out."
The team was keen to point out that the break from Sony's London studio was enitrely amicable, but explained that they were ready for a more accelerated form of development.
"It didn't happen at a fast enough pace for us," said technical director Sean Turner.
"We would get behind an idea and you didn't have the control to continue or thrust ideas forwards as much as we'd like. So possibly that lack of control was the impeding thing, not lack of creativity."
It was a sentiment that Whitaker backed.
"Console games, which cost upwards of 10 million bucks to make, these companies, like Sony and Microsoft, they can't take quite so many risks with them because there's so much money involved," he added.
"One of the things that attracted me was, let's just do something that's innovative and quick to make and we can just get on and do it and there's a lot less bureaucracy and money men behind it. It's liberating."
Hutch Games formed in June 2011, and just released its iOS racing title, Smash Cops. It is also working with Microsoft Soho Productions on Sesame Street Kinect, providing full time production consulting.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...zing-situation

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