IO: Reviews and marketing 'both important'

Product advertising and critic reviews both have a degree of importance when releasing a game to the market - although IO Interactive general manager Niels Jørgensen has refused to be drawn on which one is the higher priority.

Instead, speaking to GamesIndustry.biz he explained his view that they'll often appeal to two different sets of people.

"Well, of course marketing is very important," he said. "The reviews are important for some people but others will just browse through the games available in a store or online and pick up whatever they think is exciting. If you look at some of the charts you'll find plenty of games in there that don't score so well on Metacritic so arguably that's a mixed thing.

"Obviously you try to incentivise consumers to buy your product and advertising can help with that, especially when a purchase can be very much an impulse thing. Reviews and advertising can often reach very different people."

IO's highest profile recent release, Kane & Lynch 2, received a wide range of review scores - evidence that it was a game with a specific appeal.

"I think it's a game that you either love or hate," he said. "It's interesting that we have scores ranging from 1/10 to 9/10, so we have critics that really loved it and those that didn't really get it."

But he added that he wasn't concerned with that range: "Actually, I think that's fine. I actually like the approach that you take some chances to reach out to an audience," he said. People have different tastes in all kinds of media and we see that with music, films, books and also with videogames.

"It's about choosing an approach to give people entertainment and variety and I think we've been able to produce something that's a bit different, if not to everyone's taste."

The full interview with Niels Jørgensen is available now.