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Cambridge game studio Fire Hose Games has landed a distribution deal with one of the largest game publishers in the world, Sony Online Entertainment (SOE). The game, Slam Bolt Scrappers, will be an exclusive digital download on the Playstation Network, sometime in early 2011, according to Fire Hose president Eitan Glinert.
“This is just tremendous for us,” Glinert said. “Just the fact that it is coming out on the PS3, I already feel like we have won. If you are a brand new studio and your first game is out on the PS3, I mean that is fantastic.”
The Playstation Network (PSN) is a distribution platform for game developers for games that will be used on the Playstation 3 game console or the Playstation Portable handheld device. While he couldn’t get into details of the financial arrangement with SOE, Glinert said that, as is the usual case in such deals, Fire Hose gets a cut of each paid download and SOE gets a cut. While the price hasn’t been set yet, Glinert said he expects it to be comparable to similar games available for purchase and download. A search of such games available on PSN shows prices from $10 to $30 dollars, but the most common is $15.
One of the benefits for Fire Hose is the reach and marketing efforts of SOE that will be brought to bear on Slam Bolt Scrappers, a game that involves elements of building and brawling, which Glinert admits is difficult for many game players to envision.
“My feeling is that this is a very good game that you need to get into people’s hands,” he said.
While Glinert said he will be happy with whatever sales happens through the Playstation Network, a home run would be selling between 200,000 and 250,000 copies of the game, he said. The game received a great deal of attention when Fire Hose debuted it at the PAX East game trade show in March in Boston, and when it was invited to be a demonstration game in the SOE booth at the recent E3 Expo in Los Angeles.
Fire Hose has seven people on staff right now, and Glinert is close to adding an eighth, an artist, he said. Having the resources of a distributor like SOE and a sales channel like the Playstation Network has taken some of the pressure off finding funding or new contract work, Glinert said, but he is always looking.
“It has given us enough breathing space so we can really focus in the game, he said. “Financially it is great news, because it means we will be in business for a while.”
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