Remember Me bidding war proves new IP matters

Capcom had to fend off ‘high profile publishers’ to sign Remember Me, the firm told MCV.

The Dontnod-developed new IP was one of the big surprises from Gamescom last week, and was unveiled on stage at Capcom’s pre-show press conference.

The action adventure game is part of a wave of new IP currently being announced as publishers try to inject some excitement back into the boxed retail space.

Remember Me art was first shown at Gamescom 2011 (it was then called Adrift) and had attracted plenty of attention from potential publishers.

I was searching on the internet at the time and saw some of this concept art,” Capcom’s marketing boss for Europe and US Michael Pattison told MCV.

And I was taken aback. So we took a trip over to Paris and it all happened very quickly. There were a number of very high profile publishers looking at it at the time and in fact there were deals waiting to be signed when we arrived. Capcom is not usually that quick to make decisions, but as soon as we saw this we had to put our hat in the ring.”

Pattison reiterated his words from MCV two weeks ago where he said consumers are hungry for new ideas, and has promised to back Remember Me – which launches on Xbox 360, PC and PS3 in May next year – with considerable marketing spend.

For any new IP, particularly this late in the cycle, you are going to have to overindex in terms of the spend.

It is something we see a long-term future in and we will invest appropriately.

All the market research will tell you that new IP doesn’t work this late on in the hardware cycle, because consumers are supposed to be preparing themselves for next-gen. But it was evident at E3 that those companies that ‘won’ were the ones that tried something a little different. Consumers are looking for something new.”