In this week's edition of "Game On," The Fly spoke with Aj Grand-Scrutton, CEO of "Battletoads" developer Dlala Studios, to discuss the game's release last month, Xbox Game Pass, game streaming, and more. 2020's "Battletoads," a reboot of the series that began in 1991, was developed by Dlala in partnership with Rare and published by Xbox Game Studios (MSFT).
'BATTLETOADS': The latest installment in the "Battletoads" franchise launched on August 20, for Xbox One and Windows PC, and was available on Microsoft's game subscription service, Xbox Game Pass, on day one. When asked how the reception to the title has been, Grand-Scrutton said that it has been "fantastic." "[It took] two years of our lives making this game, and we started pitching it two years before that, so it’s been a long journey," the Dlala CEO said. "Your biggest fear as a game creator is getting cancelled, right? So just having the game out there feels like a massive accomplishment. Seeing the way that players interacted with it, seeing that reviews that have mostly been positive, I’m really over the moon with how it’s been received.”
REBOOTS: Prior to this latest release, there hasn't been a "Battletoads" game since "Battletoads Arcade," which launched in 1994. Since Dlala, a smaller gaming studio, was assisting with the reboot of a franchise owned by a large publisher like Microsoft, The Fly asked Aj Grand-Scrutton if there was added pressure or challenge in working on a long-dormant franchise. "I think the most pressure came from myself," he said. "I was a massive fan of the original [Battletoads games], especially 'Battletoads: Double Dragon.' Once I had access to emulators and ROMs as a kid, the original 'Battletoads' became one of my all-time favorite games. So going into this, I knew there was a level of expectation. It was hard to know, as it’s been 26 years since the last game came out, which was 'Battletoads Arcade.' It was hard to know how much of that fanbase still existed. Or was the vocal people online the actual majority of the fanbase now, or is it just a vocal minority? So I definitely felt that pressure of doing something for a franchise that has fans that exist, and at the same time we knew we were taking some bold moves in terms of doing things different from what the traditional canon of that franchise had been. So I definitely wasn’t shocked by reactions, but that pressure of ‘if we’re making these changes, they have to be good,’ that was there definitely from day one all the way to shipping.”
GAME PASS: "Battletoads" was immediately available on Game Pass on day one of release, which is the standard for Microsoft-published titles. When asked if he believes subscription services like Game Pass are ultimately a good thing for developers, including smaller ones, Grand-Scrutton said he does, adding that he "adores" Game Pass. "For me, it was a no-brainer," the CEO said. “Over the last year, the Microsoft exclusives alone [make it worth it]. I had always planned to play 'Sea of Thieves,' I always wanted to play 'Crackdown 3,' I’m going to play 'Halo: Infinite' when it comes out. If it’s a situation between paying the equivalent of one boxed game or having access to first party titles alone on Game Pass, it’s a no-brainer.”
“As a developer, and as a studio head, 'Battletoads' only got made because of Game Pass," Grand-Scrutton continued. "It’s not because nobody would have been interested in it [otherwise], but there’s this black hole in game development where anything above that $250K-$500K is too big for some small publishers, but anything below $20M is too small for the bigger publishers, so you end up with a very small selection of publishers who will fund those games [in the middle], in that $2M-$5M range. And so 'Battletoads' literally wouldn’t exist if Game Pass didn’t happen.”
“I hope the Game Pass team are really happy with how Battletoads has gone, how it’s been received," he added. "It can encourage them to take on more of that Netflix model where, as well as getting in these fantastic titles from other publishers, they’re funding projects via Game Pass.”
When asked if people were purchasing the game at full price instead of using Game Pass, Grand-Scrutton said it's hard for him to say. "As a developer, we don’t have direct access to the actual statistics," he said. "All I can see is the obvious engagement on a surface level. Based on Steam reviews and such, we are seeing a much larger percentage of people playing via Game Pass than via purchase. I’d love to be able to give you actual numbers and statistics, but that’s all in Microsoft’s hands at this point.”
CLOUD: "Battletoads" is currently available on Microsoft's cloud gaming service, which allows players to stream games onto mobile devices. “Being completely honest, I didn’t know we were day one until I saw the press release," Grand-Scrutton said. "We had been talking to the xCloud team, and we knew the plan was for us to go into cloud gaming, but I didn’t actually know we were going in on day one, so it’s nice to know that the game was running well enough that it could perform well there.”
Commenting on how players have experienced the game through streaming, the CEO noted that he's "kept an eye on Twitter," and that most of the tweets he's seen have said the game is performing "really well." " As long as they’ve got a good internet connection, the game’s doing well there," Grand-Scrutton said. "I don’t know in terms of kind of player engagement what sort of impact that cloud gaming has had. Hopefully, I will find that information out [soon].”
“I’ve not seen any negative tweets coming at me so far,” he added. “I’m taking that as a good thing for now!”
FUTURE OF CLOUD: The Fly also asked Aj Grand-Scrutton if development of future Dlala Studios games would take cloud gaming into account, he said it will "very much depend on who we're talking to." "It’s very clear that Microsoft is leaning in to cloud gaming," he continued. "They’ve got Game Pass for the downloadable side of things, and then they’ve got cloud gaming for getting those first party titles out for people to play on portable devices. If we were to do more titles with Microsoft, I would imagine we’d be looking at going into cloud gaming probably day-and-date release.”
“It hasn’t affected how we develop games," the CEO added. "We haven’t had to do anything special ourselves to get Battletoads running for cloud gaming. As far as I’m aware, there’s not been a large amount of investment or work that had to take place from the cloud gaming team to get 'Battletoads' to perform, which is fantastic. Moving forward, if I knew we were going to be doing titles that would be on platforms such as that, we’d probably put a little more time into developing some of the touch controls.”
DLALA'S FUTURE: When asked if Dlala sees itself assisting with the development of future Microsoft IP, Grand-Scrutton said he "100%" does. "I’ve got nothing in my heart but love for Microsoft," he said. "We’ve had a really good relationship. We were internally incubated by them in 2013. Getting to work with Rare over the last few years have been fantastic. We’d be 100% interested in working on more Microsoft IP. The important thing for me, with Dlala, we only ever take on projects that we can achieve to the highest quality. 'Battletoads' was very much in our wheelhouse, and I knew we could do a good job. I feel there’s more Rare IP that I’d love to see, like some of the older stuff. I don’t think [Microsoft] is going to come to use anytime soon for 'Halo' or 'Gears,' but I think if there’s the right IP, we’d be interested in working with Microsoft [again].”
“It’s exactly the same for Nintendo (NTDOY) and Sony (SNE)," Grand-Scrutton added. "As a consumer, I’ve bought all three platforms, I love all three platforms. The quality of titles across all three is insane, and I would love to do work with any of them to be honest. For us, we will always be loyal to whomever we’re working with, and we’ll always give them the highest quality that we can give. But, as an independent studio, it’s important for us that we don’t get too focused on simply targeting one platform holder. If opportunities arise for any of them, we’re open to those conversations.”
"Game On" is The Fly's weekly recap of the stories powering up or beating down video game stocks.
