Publisher BBC Wales Interactive says more than half a million people downloaded the first episode of its Doctor Who: The Adventure Games series in the first 12 days after the PC game released for free in the UK.
As with the other episodes, the first release, City of the Daleks, was originally intended as a full and legitimate Doctor Who episode for the sci-fi television program, and features the likenesses and voices of the show's stars Matt Smith and Karen Gillen.
Doctor Who's head writer and executive producer Steven Moffat, as well as many others involved with the production of the show, is also involved with the publicly-funded game project, as Sumo Digital (Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing, Virtua Tennis 2009) handles its development.
Along with the 524,299 UK gamers that downloaded City of the Daleks, the publisher notes that the BBC's main Doctor Who site received a week-on-week 67 percent increase in traffic from unique UK visitors during the seven days after the game was released.
BBC Wales Interactive plans to unveil the second episode of Doctor Who: The Adventure Games in Scotland next week. While gamers with a UK IP address can still download the first episode for free, those outside the country will need to wait for a paid retail edition due some time next month.
"To say we're thrilled that we've received in excess of half a million download requests within the first 12 days is an understatement," says BBC Multiplatform head Simon Nelson. "The project has been a real labour of love from the whole Doctor Who and multiplatform team, so we're delighted the reaction has been so strong."
He adds, "The response has been tremendous - with almost universal praise from Doctor Who fans. It's clear we've got people playing these 'interactive episodes' who wouldn't ordinarily play through a computer game - and the opportunity to actually be the Doctor is hugely appealing.
It's about time someone expanded this franchise :) Dr. Who has been running for decades, it's successfully made the jump to novelizations, it's spawned spin-off series, it's possibly one of the richer, more flexible universes out there (and, lets face it, who wouldn't want to tool around in a time-machine that has a swimming pool). Good Show guys!
> "The response has been tremendous - with almost universal praise from Doctor Who fans."
Hmm. Alec Meer of Rock Paper Shotgun noted that while production value was high, the actual gameplay was somewhat repetitive and didn't connect with the narrative. (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/06/02/semi-live-blog-doctor-who-adventures)
Also, what has been the response from players who are more gamers than Doctor Who fans?
> While gamers with a UK IP address can still download the first episode for free, those outside the country will need to wait for a paid retail edition due some time next month.
This restriction on non-UK content purchasers is something that I know at least one U.S.-based ardent Doctor Who fan (especially of the David Tennant years) finds extremely annoying. And it's not just computer games, nor only items subsidized by Britain's state-run media; amazon.co.uk also embargoes some items to potential customers who don't happen to be British crown subjects.
But before I go all Angry Internet Man on this, maybe I should ask: do U.S. game publishers (or the U.S. government) impose any such IP address restriction on any games produced there?
Let's set aside online games that have different servers in different regions and may have different service launch dates. Has there ever been a single-player game that was restricted by IP address to U.S. consumers for any amount of time?
(I probably won't start frothing even if the answer is "no," but I am curious about this now.)
Well, BBC content is paid for directly by UK TV licenses.
I wish they'd offer foreigners the option of buying a UK TV license to get access to all this stuff, but expecting to get it for free would be a bit rich :)
Non-subsidised stuff is of course another issue, but that's unrelated to the Dr Who thing.
There's heaps of stuff people outside the US have problems accessing, for what it's worth. Seems like it's mostly things like TV and music streaming, but regional pricing on games, even through digital distribution, gouges non-US citizens deeply. An Australian buying a game on Steam from a particularly greedy publisher pays almost double what someone in the US would.
Hmm. Alec Meer of Rock Paper Shotgun noted that while production value was high, the actual gameplay was somewhat repetitive and didn't connect with the narrative. (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/06/02/semi-live-blog-doctor-who-adventures)
Also, what has been the response from players who are more gamers than Doctor Who fans?
> While gamers with a UK IP address can still download the first episode for free, those outside the country will need to wait for a paid retail edition due some time next month.
This restriction on non-UK content purchasers is something that I know at least one U.S.-based ardent Doctor Who fan (especially of the David Tennant years) finds extremely annoying. And it's not just computer games, nor only items subsidized by Britain's state-run media; amazon.co.uk also embargoes some items to potential customers who don't happen to be British crown subjects.
But before I go all Angry Internet Man on this, maybe I should ask: do U.S. game publishers (or the U.S. government) impose any such IP address restriction on any games produced there?
Let's set aside online games that have different servers in different regions and may have different service launch dates. Has there ever been a single-player game that was restricted by IP address to U.S. consumers for any amount of time?
(I probably won't start frothing even if the answer is "no," but I am curious about this now.)
I wish they'd offer foreigners the option of buying a UK TV license to get access to all this stuff, but expecting to get it for free would be a bit rich :)
Non-subsidised stuff is of course another issue, but that's unrelated to the Dr Who thing.
There's heaps of stuff people outside the US have problems accessing, for what it's worth. Seems like it's mostly things like TV and music streaming, but regional pricing on games, even through digital distribution, gouges non-US citizens deeply. An Australian buying a game on Steam from a particularly greedy publisher pays almost double what someone in the US would.