http://www.wiiware-world.com/news/2008/06/eternitys_child_no_plans_for_a_north_american_release

After yesterday’s shock news regarding the distribution of World of Goo, we’ve been informed by Luc Bernard that to the best of his knowledge, Eternity’s Child is currently only coming out in Europe on WiiWare.

The game is being published by UK company Alten8 and Bernard has confirmed that although he's been kept informed about the upcoming Euro release, he's not been told anything about plans for North American publication.

Speaking exclusively to WiiWare World, Bernard had this to say:

Well as of right now Eternity's Child is coming out on PC at the end of the month, I am not handling the Wiiware version, I am just having to translate it to 7 languages (so fun...). Eternity’s Child is currently only coming out in Europe on WiiWare for the moment.

Alten8 have the Wiiware version and it's their decision when or where to release it, and from what I know europe is their priority. At this point I think Eternity's Child Wiiware might come out in europe at the end of Q3, but I don't control when or where it comes out.

I hope for my next games to release first on Wiiware and be more in charge. I would like to defend World Of Goo though, since I saw alot of people got angry about them going retail, the title looks good enough to go retail and I will probably buy it if I'm still in Europe rather than Call Of Duty. I got offered to do EC as a retail title at one point.

The problem I would say in this industry, is that when I go up to publishers all they want is EC and won't look at any other of my games because there is no press around them, which is kind of sad. These are the phrases that I often get "great game design but art style is not mainstream enough", "art style does not appeal to hardcore gamers", "we have not seen results of Wiiware sales so we'll pass", "there is no press surrounding this game we don't know if people will want it". Maybe I should just put in a space marine with a gun that is defending earth from space nazis for them to be interested!

Some people might say this balances things out after the disappointing World of Goo debacle but we have to admit we’re rather puzzled by this decision, given the massive amount of hype the game has had worldwide. Obviously it’s all down to the publisher so if you’re in North America and want to see Eternity’s Child on WiiWare, post your thoughts below – you never know, someone from Alten8 (or another publisher altogether) might read and take notice.

It’s worth noting that the game is due out on PC via Steam at the end of the month, and that version WILL be available to North American gamers

interesting comments he posts about the publishers - they certainly seem to like to pigeon hole people. Interesting that their saying to him we're interested in this game because of the hype when shouldn't it be in their interests to take a decent idea and advertise it themselves to create the hype?

This is where WiiWare is all win cos so far it has:

Rocketed Lost Winds into the AAA category.
Pushed Sam & Max to Retail when it started out as a Wii Ware
Pushed World of Goo to Retail when it laso started out as a Wii Ware title.
Got these pubs prioritising Eternitys Child as their no 1 priority.

If nothing else Wii Ware may just give publishers an idea of what can happen if a Wii game is hyped, we may start to see it used for pre-release tasters, spin offs for Retail titles they want to push.

oh well...

I like this part of the interview:

"The problem I would say in this industry, is that when I go up to publishers all they want is EC and won't look at any other of my games because there is no press around them, which is kind of sad. These are the phrases that I often get "great game design but art style is not mainstream enough", "art style does not appeal to hardcore gamers", "we have not seen results of Wiiware sales so we'll pass", "there is no press surrounding this game we don't know if people will want it". Maybe I should just put in a space marine with a gun that is defending earth from space nazis for them to be interested!"

He is right on the money. Never thought a developer was also concerned on whats happening on video game industry right now.

it'll change - as I said in my previous post this has a lot to do with why Nintendo released Wii Ware, to allow the public to show what will sell.

The majority of the HD AAA titles have been already established games where they've been a natural progression but the Wii is different and new names need to be made. Wii Ware will help that a lot and once a storage solution gets announced I expect the flood gates to open.

Do you mean wiiware games are meant to be retail eventually? Never think of that, so wiiware isnt just a downloadable service just like PSN or Xbox arcade eh?

maybe not directly but I think it will demonstrate which games have an audience and which will bomb, this is also what the figures on Nintendos channel is to help with.

Say if Lost Winds has 2 - 3 games and all are top sellers, gets great reviews is well hyped and well talked about then at some point people are going to copy that formula and retail it.

Imagine if games had a Wii Ware prequel / training mode released beforehand where you could earn some status to unlock somethings in the game when it arrived and it was sold for say a token amount. This would kinda act the same way as the 360 demo channel in a way as we know how impatient gamers get.

Pretty good idea there me. Though wiiware seem step aside by NOE right now, I've seen the link on the shock news I click it and read the comments there. So there are only few wiiware titles on Europe right now unlike in NA and Japan?

I still think it will trickle out until Storage gets sorted - it's not the amount though it's just it's being used to showcase some amazing games and hopefully they will sell.

Toki Tori and Lost Winds are amazing must play titles and I reckon EC, That High Voltage Animal whatever it was called, My Life as King (haven't downloaded that one yet) and a few others that spring to mind will be also.

Boo. I was looking forward to this.