DreamCatcher Interactive, along with The Adventure Company sublabel, has recently made it to becoming the 10th largest publisher in the US. Founded in Toronto, DreamCatcher started out as a small distributor of adventure titles such as Beyond Time and Jewels of the Oracle. Thanks to its phenomenal growth, DreamCatcher is now the leading publisher of adventure games in North America.

The success of DreamCatcher is based for a large part on the myriad of adventure titles created by the now-defunct Cryo Interactive, and their effective marketing and repackaging for the North American market. DreamCatcher is now expanding accross the Atlantic, having opened a new European division based on salvaged Cryo assets. We were invited to take a look at DreamCatcher’s European line-up at a press event in Paris last week.

Most notable in the line-up is Law & Order: Dead On The Money, which will be released in UK, German, French, Spanish and Italian localizations around June 2003. Besides the localized voiceovers, the developers of the TV show adaptation decided to make the time limit optional in the European version. (The time limit, by the way, is based on the actions of the player—not on real time). The developers were apparently overwhelmed by user feedback in the US, where the game has sold over 250,000 units.

Others games that we saw were Thorgal: Odin’s Curse (known as Curse of Atlantis in North America), Salammbô: Peril in Carthage and Emenophis: Resurrection, the European version of The Cameron Files: Pharaoh’s Curse. The Omega Stone was also announced, but wasn’t quite ready to be shown yet, as it is slated for release much later this year. We’ll be posting full previews of some of the new titles this month.

During our meeting in Paris we got to talk with Ghislain Pages, Commercial Director for the new DreamCatcher Europe, discussing the company’s future line-up and strategies.

What are your goals going to be for the European division for the next years?

Today, DreamCatcher North-America is the leader for the adventure game, with a 60% share of that market. That’s the strength of DreamCatcher. By taking the assets of the former Cryo company—such as the Salammbô and Atlantis team, and the team of Egypt and the historical adventure genre—DreamCatcher North-America has good roots for Europe through Cryo. By mixing the good European roots of the former Cryo with the vision, the strength and the clear ideas of DreamCatcher North-America, we aim at becoming leaders of the adventure game in one or two years. For that we have created one label, which is The Adventure Company. For the final consumers it means one company will provide all types of adventure games. That’s the first idea. Our second idea: The Adventure Company is not the whole market, obviously. We are developing together, but Dreamcatcher as a label is more about “gamers” and more “American-type” products, like Painkiller or Harbinger. Those games are both brilliant examples of that.

You’ve already touched on this in your answer, but how much of Dreamcatcher Europe is based on Cryo assets?

Mostly, it’s the structure. There is an organisation with a knowledge of the market. Thanks to that we already have a good approach. We know what consumers are looking for, and we want to adapt ourselves to them—not the opposite. By taking the assets of Cryo, DreamCatcher in North-America is already making great steps in its approach in Europe. It’s not going to approach Europe through an American perspective, but through a European one. That’s very important. Secondly, we have the two development teams, which are well known for the quality of the graphics and also for the fantastical and historical scenarios. That’s why we are going to release a title like Salammbô this year. Everybody talks about the French touch, but nobody knows what it is. The people who buy Salammbô will perhaps understand what the French touch is. The graphics, the originality and the story based on the book from Gustave Flaubert—the game is quite artistic. That’s what we've taken from Cryo.

Is this the kind of direction you want to take with these games? Because Cryo has also made a lot of more realistic or …

(laughs) Boring?

… or historical games.

We don’t want to get only historical, or only fantastical games. But we want their parts of the adventure market. But we don’t want to release a historical game every three months. One or two very good games of that type per year is enough. The same goes for the fantastical games, not to mention all the other games we have. With Law & Order we will provide the first police inquiry game in Europe.