Game of Thrones - Interview @ Dagon's Lair

Dagon, of Dagon's Lair, informed us of an interview he conducted with Games of Thrones lead designer Sylvain Sechi about the choices made and the reception of the game.
(Note that you have to scroll down on the page to read the English text).

First reviews on english console dedicated website gave to the game average ratings, whose I really don’t understand regarding the PC release. After, other specialized websites, like us at Dagon’s Lair or RPGFrance published far more positive reviews.
Are the sales meeting expectations ? How was the reception ? Are there big differences on PC or console ? What was your studio’s reaction regarding the reception for the game ?
Syl : It’s too early to have detailed sales figures, but the game seems to do well. About the press reviews, it’s something which touched us much. It’s hard to work 3 years, sweating blood, without reacting regarding the comments of the journalist testing our game. First opinions were mainstream magazines whose readers are mainstream action gamers / core gamers who play mainly on consoles. We knew GOT was a hardcore game. An « old school » RPG, and those journalists didn’t like at all some aspects of the game. In Europe, the critics were mostly better, with some good ratings. I think european gamers are more bound to the game and to its’ story than next-gen graphics.
On the player side, it’s been mostly positive and that made us feel good. Even if they didn’t like the game, we had a very good reception from RPG fans. It’s mainly for them we created this game. Respect of the licence and of the story are two strong points. Players are divided about the combat system. Some love it, some hate it…

More information.

Sad. Doesn't exactly encourage other developers to make anything other than a twitchy action game.

I wonder if the current price point is to high? It's $50 on Steam, which for me means generally high production values, generally Awesome (TM) experience etc. The price coupled with the average reviews is probably hurting their new sales quite a bit. If it was much less, I would have snapped it up without blinking (as a fan of the series) - but my gaming time is currently over-subscribed as it is, so I need a real incentive to fork over $50…

Originally Posted by booboo
I wonder if the current price point is to high? It's $50 on Steam, which for me means generally high production values, generally Awesome (TM) experience etc. The price coupled with the average reviews is probably hurting their new sales quite a bit. If it was much less, I would have snapped it up without blinking (as a fan of the series) - but my gaming time is currently over-subscribed as it is, so I need a real incentive to fork over $50…

I hear you, and that's probably a good idea. I've enjoyed it but haven't finished it or anything. The combat system is my favorite part, though I also hear the criticisms about spamming a winning formula, I.e. style that causes bleeding followed by a style with extra damage to a bleeding opponent, MMO style. I just like the slow mo. I'm so sick of twitchy games.

I believe him when he says the sales have been decent. It was in Steam's top sellers pretty consistently, probably due to the popularity of Martin's world, which is probably the same reason they haven't dropped the price.

Originally Posted by booboo
I wonder if the current price point is to high? It's $50 on Steam, which for me means generally high production values, generally Awesome (TM) experience etc. The price coupled with the average reviews is probably hurting their new sales quite a bit. If it was much less, I would have snapped it up without blinking (as a fan of the series) - but my gaming time is currently over-subscribed as it is, so I need a real incentive to fork over $50…

Is it really that much on Steam?

—- One minute later —-

Yep… it's pretty much the same here in Europe (40 euro's = 49 dollars).

In Dutch non-digital retail it's available for a bit more than half that price at 22 euro's (= 27 dollars). Which imho is a reasonable price.

I'm still not getting it for now, I still have some stuff to play. But I will eventually.