Realtime Worlds is the studio responsible for the first brilliantly empowering Crackdown, but Microsoft gave it the cold shoulder for Crackdown 2, favoring instead a rival Scottish developer in Ruffian Games. Realtime was a little hurt over getting shafted, but Microsoft has explained why it chose to take its business elsewhere.
“When Billy Thomson, the lead designer of [Crackdown], left Realtime Worlds, there was an opportunity,” explains Microsoft executive Phil Spencer. “I wanted to make sure that anything we work on is correctly nurtured … we had to find the right team who really understood what game it is — and that was Billy and the team at Ruffian.”
Spencer argues that Realtime Worlds was busy working on APB and wouldn’t be able to give Crackdown 2 the attention it deserved. Perhaps that is prudent thinking on the part of Spencer, especially with the original game’s lead designer at Ruffian, but RTW has definitely been left feeling stung.
