Gamescom is approaching, and some players are asking the creators of Ori and No Rest for the Wicked if they will participate in the show. Moon Studios head Thomas Mahler decided to speak out on social media about this issue.
According to the developer, he believes that his team is better suited to their own presentation format, "Wicked Inside." They specifically created it "to avoid being crammed into one block with a bunch of other games and facing strict time limits."
At shows like Gamescom, Mahler explains, developers are usually given only a minute or two, "unless it's a major publisher or someone's close friend among the show hosts."
There's also a financial aspect. Mahler noted that the costs of participating in such shows have sharply increased:
Now developers have to shell out about 250–500 thousand for a slot at a show. And even after paying that amount, you don't know exactly where in the program your game will be shown. We put all our effort, blood, and sweat into our projects – I wouldn't want Wicked to end up next to some carelessly made new project just because someone decided to put it there.
In the case of games like No Rest for the Wicked, developers often need to show more substantial updates to explain new systems in detail and showcase them better:
In such show formats [like Gamescom], this would be impossible, and players, I think, would not appreciate a two-minute montage of all the new features without the opportunity to truly explore it all.