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A dispute over rights to the IP squashed it from happening.
In the summer of 2010, the beautiful, ambient game Limbo was released on Xbox Live and received critical acclaim. It came to PlayStation Network and Steam a year later, so just about everyone has had the chance to play it, but Sony itself revealed some information, via Edge, that paints a different could-be picture for Limbo in the years leading up to its release.
At last week’s Develop Conference in the UK, Pete Smith, a Sony producer, spoke about Sony’s pursuit of Limbo and how the deal to get the game exclusively on PSN fell apart over the securing of the game’s rights. “I maybe shouldn’t say this,” Smith said, “but we had issues when we were trying to sign Limbo because of the IP.”
Sony’s insistence on owning the IP meant that developer Playdead went to Xbox Live instead, where the studio retained the rights to the game. Subsequently, the game did gangbusters numbers and only came to PSN when the hullabaloo surrounding the game had died down. Smith noted that, generally, “there are obvious benefits to keeping [an IP], but also to giving it up: you’re way more likely to get the deal. Remember: 100 percent of nothing is nothing. A publisher is much more likely to commit to marketing and merchandising if they own the IP.”
For Sony, consider this instance a lesson learned.
