‘It’s a natural evolution of everything we are doing’
Ah, Journey. I thought I was a total latecomer, having picked it up during a holiday sale late last year — but thatgamecompany’s thoughtful PlayStation 3 game continues to sell well. “We made the money back last year, then this year we see royalties coming in,” company president Jenova Chen told The Telegraph. “It seems like the Journey sales are not going away.”
Offering a few more hints about the team’s next project, which can be “put on any platform we want” thanks to funding via venture capital and internal IP ownership, Chen said that “It’s been almost a year now and we are still in a very pre, pre-production mode. It’s always been the pattern of thatgamecompany that we spent 75 percent of time doing R&D and a smaller portion of time on production. When we go for a particular goal we have to do a lot of trial and error. It can feel like you are reaching out in the fog trying to find something.”
Continuing: “The next game after Journey is like, ok we’ve done it with strangers on the internet, can this also happen among people who know each other. It’s a natural evolution of everything we are doing,” Chen commented. “Our next game is going to be something that will relate to a wide audience on a human level. It is very exciting to see my own maturing and the team’s maturing and I’m curious to see what this next game could be.”
Without a clear source of funding post-Journey, the studio had to cut everybody but the founders. Now that it’s been secured, “we hired people back, right now we are 14 people and still growing.” Which is terrific news, as a fan of their games. My only real fear had been that a lack of money would kill the dream. Glad that’s not a concern for the time being.
Next ThatGameCompany Game – Interview with Jenova Chen (2 of 5) [Family Gamer TV]
Life After Journey for ThatGameCompany [The Telegraph]
