French publisher Bowls into UK

Focus Home Interactive has set its sights on snaring share as a publisher in the UK games market with its action sports title, Blood Bowl.

The French publisher first told MCV last year that it was looking to break into the UK games market – and the firm is confident that Warhammer tie-in Blood Bowl will be its first big success in the region.

Today, the UK is the largest market goal-wise,” said Focus Home Interactive COO Cdric Lagarrigue.

We’re very well represented all over Europe, where we achieve excellent results, but the UK is still the market where our results have been a lot lower than in other countries.

We hope to turn that around this year, thanks to some key titles such as the Sherlock Holmes series published by Ubisoft and Blood Bowl, which has been adapted from the Games Workshop mythical board game. It has already been a huge success in countries such as France, Germany and Spain and we are very confident that it will be a hit in the UK as well.”

The PC edition of Blood Bowl hit European shelves in late June, and was greeted to acclaim and strong sales. And the publisher is optimistic it can repeat its success in the UK when Blood Bowl launches in September.

We didn’t know what to expect before the launch of Blood Bowl on PC in France, Germany and Spain,” adds Lagarrigue.

We just knew for sure that there are a lot of fans of the original board game and that the universe and the game mechanics could appeal to a larger audience. From its release, the game has been extremely well received by critics and players. Many stores, like GAME in France, are already sold out. Knowing that the UK is Blood Bowl country, we’d be very disappointed if the game doesn’t meet with the same success.”