XBLA dev: We need better marketing

Consumers need to be better educated about digital games, the developer behind forthcoming PSN and XBLA title, Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes has claimed.

"It's amazing how many gamers haven't purchased an XBLA or PSN title," Nathan Vella, CEO of Capybara Games, told Eurogamer. "And I think it's mostly because there's not nearly enough education that the service exists.

"Sure, everyone posting on [Neo]GAF or reading EGM knows and buys downloadable titles, but the normal player sitting on their floor in the basement busting headshots or throwing touchdowns probably only knows Live/PSN exists for online multiplayer.

"The more people are educated about downloadable titles and how to get great games off the services, the better indies - and everyone, for that matter - will fare on the platform."

Vella also updated us on how Clash of Heroes is shaping up. The game is a remake of the stupidly addictive DS puzzle-RPG of the same name released earlier this year.

"We really loved the Clash of Heroes DS one-on-one versus mode, so we're ultra-excited to give people the chance to play this via Xbox Live or PSN. Not stopping there, we added an additional multiplayer mode we'll be talking more about shortly, but we think it's pretty rad.

"We've listened to the Clash of Heroes fans and made some pretty important tweaks. You can back out of a fight after learning your opponent's level, rather than having to retreat. You can continue campaigns you have completed, so completists can 100 per cent the entire game. We've taken all of the units that, on DS, weren't overly useful and given them brand new, sometimes game-changing, abilities. And then there's a massive amount of balancing based on awesome feedback from the fans and critics."

Clash of Heroes isn't the only Might & Magic title on the way. Ubisoft teased a new, more traditional Might & Magic RPG on its Facebook page last month. Vella is hoping fans of the main series will come on over for his quirky puzzle offshoot.

"We had some awesome hate during the initial Clash of Heroes dev cycle. Some fans constantly referred to our game as Rash of Herpes. The last two Might & Magic games they had seen weren't 'traditional' games in the series... not exactly what the hardcores were looking for. So they weren't too jazzed.

"However, I have to give them a ton of credit. They played Clash of Heroes and most of them apologised for the hate. Fan sites reviewed the game and gave it glowing marks. Fan forums reminded closed-minded M&M fans to give it a shot before denouncing it. Some of them even contributed to the re-balancing of the game through their feedback."

Ubisoft was kind enough to give Eurogamer some exclusive new screens of the game. Check them out in the gallery below.

Capybara, who also made PSN gem Critter Crunch, have more on the way. The studio is working on Heartbeat for WiiWare ("A dot-matrix musical odyssey about love and robots", apparently), Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP for iPad and two other unannounced titles.

"They're quite a while out though, so I don't even want to tease," said Vella.

Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes will arrive on PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade later this year.

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