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Lionhead boss Peter Molyneux hopes Fable III will achieve sales of more than five million units and achieve a $150 million profit in the process.
Failure to reach these targets would be seen as a disappointment and could spell trouble for the franchise.
“We have to do that because if a franchise doesn’t reach that level it will inevitably wither,” he told an audience – which included GamesIndustry.biz – at the GameHorizon conference in Gateshead.
In addition to retail sales, Molyneux confirmed that Fable III will be split into chapters and sold digitally, with the first chapter offered as a free download.
“Soon after the retail launch we’re doing episodic,” said Molynuex. “We break it down in chapters. We give away the first chapter entirely free, the first hour. When you reach a certain point in the game it says ‘thank you for playing the pilot of Fable 3, do you want to spend an extra 2-5 or whatever dollars to buy the next episode, or buy the whole lot?’ Press ‘yes’ and you will immediately continue playing.”
It’s a concept which has already proved successful for Lionhead, with Fable II’s episodic release earning $15 million on Xbox LIVE.
“It supports this freemium idea,” he added. “It gets around this horrible concept of demos. Anyone out there who thinks a demo is a good idea is crazy. It’s never a good idea, because demos are usually done at the end of a game and they require an enormous amount of design talent to make a demo.”
Fable III is scheduled for release on October 26 for Xbox 360 and PC.
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