Krafton head Changhan 'CH' Kim doesn’t think a sequel to 'Hi-Fi Rush' would be financially successful.
Krafton head Changhan 'CH' Kim doesn’t think a sequel to Hi-Fi Rush would be financially successful
The publisher officially bought the I.P. and its studio Tango Gameworks last month after Xbox announced it would be shutting down the developer in May alongside Arkane Austin, Roundhouse Games and Alpha Dog, and now Krafton's boss has revealed it acquired Tango to "maintain" its legacy rather than cash-in on 'Hi-Fi Rush'.
During an interview with Game Developer, 'CH' said: "We can't acquire Tango Gameworks based on their financials or their numbers, right? We don't think 'Hi-Fi Rush 2' is going to make us money, to be frank.
"But it's part of our attempt. We have to keep trying [to develop games] in the spirit of challenge-taking.
"Tango Gameworks are creative. They want to try something new, and we want to do more of that. [Developing] video games is really a hit or miss industry, and that is risk taking. But having more project lineups is actually a way to mitigate risk, because one of them might work out."
The Kraton boss added big gaming publishers shouldn't expect constant smash-hits, and should instead hope to at least "break even" while protecting their developers' creative output.
He explained: "The big hit shouldn't be your goal. If you think about it that way, 'Hi-Fi Rush' might have brought in a little bit of a minus in terms of the financials, but it's a team that should be encouraged to create something new and continue their journey.
"We want to have more teams like that under our umbrella."