Presentation

[Microapplication : Francois]

Micro Application is a 25 years old French software publisher. Our gaming branch is focused on the adventure range for 3 years now.

Micro Application est une soci�t� d'�dition de presque 25 ans. Notre division jeux est sp�cialis�e en jeux d'aventure.

Games Published so far/Jeux d'aventure �dit�s ŕ ce jour :

- Journey to the Centre of the Earth/Voyage au Centre de la Terre
- The Black Mirror
- Nibiru
- Nancy Drew
- RHEM 1 et 2
- The Longest Journey

Games to come/Jeux d'aventure ŕ venir :

- Scratches
- Ankh
- Keepsake
- Paradise, the new Beno�t Sokal's game
- Dreamfall: The Longest Journey
- Tony Tough 2
- next Nancy Drew games
- several titles to be announced very soon...

Waiting for your questions/En attendant vos questions,

Fran�ois Logeais - Head of new products

[Cl�mentXVII]

Hi Fran�ois

(I'll post in english so everybody who's interested can follow )

Micro Application has been known for a long time amongst PC users as a "tips & tricks" editor: focused primarily on pc users, you had (and still have) a lot of application which can help you create CD labels, iron T-shirts, design your house, play cards,... the gaming titles you had were all in the lines of 101 3D games, Card games,... not really titles that a (hardcore) gamer would buy, but more focused on the occasional PC user.

And now, since publishing Voyage au centre de la terre and The Black Mirror, you start publishing a lot of interesting games, especially adventures!

How come that MicroApp decided to go onto mainstream gaming with adventures at a time where adventure games were just awakening from their wintersleep? I mean, I know a lot of companies who didn't want to bet on adventure games at that time ;-)

[imported_wedge]

Hello.

Thanks for coming so I see they are still newthings to come anything you could already tell like a little clue or things like that ? OR I do not know maybe you have some new videos or screens on the upcoming games ? I'm really expecting much of many games that are on this list here

[Microapplication : Francois]

Hi Clement,

The answer is pretty simple. As a major PC publishing company (Micro Application is the N�1 software publisher on the French market), Micro Application had to go on the games market, as it is more and more important each year. This decision has been taken more than 3 years ago now and the gamig branch has become a major axis of development for the company.

Then the decision to focus our activity on the adventure games was the result of several points :

- we strongly believe that storytelling is the future of video games, wether they are adventure, fps or even racing games
- we wanted to reach not the core fps players but casual gamers as we believe they are the future of video games
- our personal experiences, both professional and personal, have some strong links with adventure games

[Microapplication : Francois]

Sorry Wedge no new materials tonite but maybe I could answer to some of your questions...

[imported_wedge]

Hum so I'll go with one it is about Dreamfall but not the game itself, As far as I know the game is coming on Xbox too, what are the difference between the PC and Xbox developments, on the game point of view but also on marketing, as I think they are royalties iin teh case of console games

[imagine]

Hi,
How Micro Application get some game titles? Did you have someone who is always looking from studios or otherways, or studios who contact you to
publish his game?

Comment Micro Application arrive a publier des jeux? Avez vous quelqu'un qui cherche tout le temps dans les studios ou autrement, ou ce sont les studios
qui vous contactent pour que vous publiez leur jeux?

[Microapplication : Francois]

[Wedge] Regarding differences between Xbox and PC games development, it really depend how the development process is handled. For Dreamfall, the 2 version are developed in parallel, that is to say that there's a common trunk which is adapted to each platform on a daily basis. Then the 2 platforms versions are optimized in different ways but actually, there's no real difference for us between the 2 versions. In a subjective way, some people prefer the PC one for the hi-resolution, anti-aliasing, anisotropic filtering, hi-res textures, etc... some other prefer the Xbox one because the tv screen gives a very cinematographic look to the game.

Regarding marketing, of course we have to pay a technology fee to the console manufacturers, so the risk on console version is higher for us... but that's our job so we are used to handle that

[Imagine] Yes, we are alwys looking after studios and game project. Actually, that represents a big part of my job. It also happens (maybe that's a 50/50 balance) that studios contact us to propose us a game project.

[imagine]

I don't remember have you developped some adventure games?

Je ne me rappelles plus, avez vous d�jŕ d�velopp� des jeux d'aventures?

[Microapplication : Francois]

yes and not - we do not develop games, but we publish and fund them from the very beginning in many cases (such as Journey, Dreamfall, Paradise, etc.). That is to say that we work closely with the dev team to ensure that the game will be as good as possible. This is the publisher's producing role.

[imagine]

I have to go (eating ), so one or two more questions:
Which game do you personally wait the most?
And finally what is the game which really surprised you?

Thanks in advance for all!

[Microapplication : Francois]

Actually, this is Dreamfall for both question... No no, it is not a marketing answer... My biggest frustration is to be already totally spoiled about Dreamfall... it's such a pity. I am also very surprised by Dreamfall as it is the most immersive/realistic/fluid adventure game experience I have ever had...

[mat69]

I'm just interested in the success you have in France. Was it a good idea - looking at the money part - publishing adventures overall? I'm just asking this because far too often you "hear" (read) that Adventures do not have a future and that's not what I think, because so many great adventures were realeased in the last few years that I think they should have been a success.

[Cl�mentXVII]

Actually, this is Dreamfall for both question... No no, it is not a marketing answer... My biggest frustration is to be already totally spoiled about Dreamfall...

... and we have to wait a few months for that ... I won't be able to wait!

Regarding Dreamfall (and, in some way, TLJ): in TLJ, there was one thing which I didn't find that good, and it was the dialogues. The voice acting was not really convincing, which is a pity for such a terrific game. Furthermore, some of the dialogues went on for a very long time without being able to exit. I always use the LucasArts titles for reference about dialogues, because they provided all the info in the beginning, and if you wanted more details, you could ask, but it wasn't necessary to go through the 100 lines of dialogue in order to get the quest going (except maybe for Guybrush and the bucket (seau) in MI2 - but there was another way also for this).

Will Dreamfall have a better voice-acting and dialogue handling as TLJ?

[Microapplication : Francois]

Hmmm I guess the answer to that is quite simple. We had published adventure games for 3 years now, and we are going to continue with titles such as Dreamfall, Paradise, Tony Tough 2 or other I can talk about now... We are more and more ambitious with adventure games, and we wouldn't be if doing that wouldn't be profitable... So yes, we earn money with adventure games even if this hard and difficult to achieve...

At the same time, we know that we won't rely on adventure games only to develop our games range, and that's why we already published games like Xpand Rally (racing), Anarchy Online (MMORPG), Chrome Specforce (FPS), Incrazyball (arcade/platform racing) or we gonna release titles such as Mad Tracks (racing) or African Safari Photo.