There is no doubt that producing a game is an exceedingly complicated process for game developers with oodles of pressure tossed on by fans and media. While we waited on the side lines for Aion's release a dedicated team labored behind the scenes not immune to the feedback and media frenzy that happens with every major title release. What do the developers think of the pre-release uproar? Gamasutra shares some insight from their Aion feature.


World of Warcraft is a blessing and a curse to other MMOs: it's undoubtedly grown the market, and a rising tide lifts all boats, but it also saddles every other MMO maker with the curse of endless comparisons:



"The pressure on the developers wasn’t just internal. Almost as soon as it was announced, gamer media gave Aion the 'WoW-killer' tag. That inheritance was unwanted but probably inevitable, because there hadn’t been a truly global MMORPG success since World of Warcraft.



"Comparisons with both Western games (Hellgate: London, Warhammer Online) and Eastern games (Prius Online) soon followed. Even before launch -- even before we knew what we were going to launch -- we were in competition with a half-dozen great games.



"We make games, so we know firsthand how competition can be healthy; it’s a virtue in and of itself. But those comparisons came so early that it was hard to ignore the other games and figure out what we wanted Aion to become. There may be a place for reactive game design, but it’s not at the beginning of the development process."



You can read more highlights from this interesting and frank interview over at Gamasutra!


To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Aion Game Page.

Last Updated: Mar 29, 2016

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