Hitman 3 is proving to be a major financial success to IO Interactive, having already recouped the production costs in under a week.
The newest installment in the Hitman series was officially released on January 20 and its sales have been continuously soaring, to much of the studio's delight.
The IO Interactive director, Hakan Abrak joyfully voiced to the GamesIndustry.biz the financial results Hitman 3 has been achieving throughout the first postrelease week: "We have been really happy with the Hitman 3 journey," Abrak said. "It has been a labor of love between our fans and everyone at the studio. As the developer and publisher, we are immensely proud that we can say Hitman 3 is already profitable. We have recouped the total project costs in less than a week."
The feat the studio managed to accomplish is even more deserving of acclaim by the fact that Hitman 3 was the first game in the series to be both developed and published by the IO Interactive studio, the previous two installments having been published by Square Enix and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, respectfully. Hakan Abrak told GamesIndustry.biz that keeping marketing and PR close to the development team was a major reason for such a success.
“We've been able to create a game that our players will love and bring it to them in the most direct way possible; developed and published by IOI”, Abrak said and then proceeded to let the public in on the responsibility that had been weighing on the developers' shoulders for the entire period of the project's creation. "We need that collaboration because we all want to create a quality product," Abrak said. "We demand of each other that our games are hand-crafted, meticulously detailed, and unique. At this point, we'd be doing our community a disservice if we delivered anything less than that. They're used to us setting a really high bar for quality and memorable experiences, so we keep that mentality at the front of our mind, not only for Hitman but also our future projects."
Future projects all right. Abrak seems to be hinting at the newest 007 Game to be released by the Danish studio, already rumored to be in the initial stages of development.
Do you think a new James Bond game will prove to become such a historical success considering it's being developed by the IOI, or rather that it is going to become yet another 007 project that never quite managed to grab the spotlight in the gaming industry? Let us know what you think on our Twitter page!