MGS Europe: We will never cancel a game
Manager Peter Zetterberg explains Microsoft's role in Europe and why the company means business
Once Microsoft Game Studios Europe signs a game, they will never cancel it says business development manager Peter Zetterberg.
"Maybe we sometimes announce them earlier than we should, but we stick with them, we have our resources team work with them as much as we can," he told GamesIndustry.biz
"It's crunch time down in Guildford now and we have people working their butts off to make Fable 2 happen. We do not, we shall not cancel games."
Zetterberg says that he sees around 600 game concepts a year, ranging from a piece of paper to a full-blown presentation with a demo, video and concept documents.
Of those submissions, about thirty go into a discussion meeting to be evaluated - and of those, perhaps five might go into a greenlight process. MGS may sign three of those.
Microsoft Game Studio Europe has the autonomy to greenlight a project, but when it commits to large, franchise developments it obviously needs the entire MGS approval Zetterberg said.
MGS Europe has a slightly different role than the team in the US - genre diversity and local values.
"We need to find games that are globally accepted, that people love on a global basis," Zetterberg said.
"Like music or singing, things that we all love. Then we can nail the local values to it."
In Europe, local values are more important because there are 25 countries, 20 languages and so many different cultures so we have to learn to think small while having the games that have global relevance.
"There's a reason why Microsoft hasn't been that successful in the past on the continent because they sit in Redmond and it's hard to understand how to make fifteen games for a smaller European market," Zetterberg said.
Having MGS Europe is a great opportunity to find globally great games with locally relevant content, he said - something that Microsoft has needed to improve upon.
"We've always moved on a global basis and this means that sometimes we have missed out on the smaller things. If you look at World of Goo or Crayon Physics, these can be easily overlooked by a large corporation that thinks global."
The complete interview with MGS Europe's Peter Zetterberg is now online.