Saints Row IV Dev Talks About Challenge of Convincing Players

Speaking to [a]list Daily, PR and marketing boss Aubrey Norris for Deep Silver talked about the challenges the developer had faced in trying to convince players that the successful Saints Row IV was in fact a worthy new experience. Of course, doing this in the middle of the chaos that followed THQ’s bankruptcy wasn’t easy.

“There were inherent challenges with Saints Row IV when we picked it up – all the turmoil from THQ’s demise and uncertainty around what was going to happen with it. And then there was an expansion pack, Enter the Dominatrix, that THQ had announced before. There was a lot of confusion about whether or not Saints Row IV would be just an expansion pack, does it really justify a full price, does it really justify a full game?

“There is actually more content in Saints Row IV than there really has been in any other Saints Row game, but when you have an expansion that’s announced like that, and then sort of like difficult messaging where it sounds like THQ just took an expansion and decided to call it a game, you’re fighting against what has been done before, and you have to turn around that perception of what it is.

“To be fair THQ actually announced that they were working on another [Saints Row]. They said ok we’re working on this then shortly after that they said ok, we’re taking Enter the Dominatrix and making it into a full game, but they didn’t really announce what that was. That’s where the confusion stemmed from, and we could see that confusion kind of continuing.”

Of course, the team worked hard to ensure that the identity of the game came through. “It’s something that you have to prove to people. It’s not something you can fix overnight. It takes time for people to see all of the stuff that you have. That requires laser focus to show people the scope of the game. We would show the game at a trade show, we’d take the mini-map and we’d unlock everything so people could see how many activities there were. We’d show the things that are new in the game, like superpowers, and really try to emphasize how different it was.”

Saints Row IV is available for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC. You can check out our official review here.