When I think of Sidhe Interactive, Shatter is what comes to mind. Not Blood Drive, which the New Zealand-based studio was also responsible for alongside Activision. Thankfully, it appears the plan is to move away from the latter type of game and develop more independent titles for digital distribution.
In a discussion with Joystiq, Sidhe co-founder Mario Wynands said exactly that: “What we are trying to do, given where retail in general is going, is continue to move towards being independent. That is, run the studio on the basis of royalties and download revenue alone, as opposed to being somewhat reliant on third-party publishers.”
“We’re still doing retail products,” he continues, “but trying to do retail products where we are being more selective about partners, more selective about what projects we take on, and continuing to transition the amount of resources that we have working on the work-for-hire side, increasingly to the download space.”
The more studios like Sidhe are able to work on projects outside of licensed titles and things of that nature, the better. We could use more games like Shatter, wouldn’t you agree?
Shatter dev Sidhe increasing focus on download space in 2011 [Joystiq]
