One of the problems I thought with Cryo was that it tried to do too much at the same time, releasing too many titles after another.

Probably, yes. Cryo tried to develop great licenses but unfortunately at that time the market was not good enough to support their developments. In the meantime, Cryo made perhaps too much games of the same type, with the same historical themes. But with a clear message and with our new strategy, I think we can become much more successful.

What are the major differences between the European and American markets (specifically for adventure games)?

The big titles that work in the States also work in Europe. I think the difference between the American line-up and the European line-up will be the specific games. For example, games like Versailles are very famous in France, and some other countries in Europe, but in the States it’s not a number one game. The main line-up will be, let’s say, 70 to 80% the same.

We’re often hearing from other companies that the market for adventure games is better in Europe than in the US. Do you agree with that?

You know, I would love to sell half a million units of The Crystal Key 2, as the first game did in the States. Even Riddle of the Sphinx—the sequel of which we’re going to release this year—sold 250,000 units in the States. I would love Europe to be much bigger than that.

To what extent will you focus on casual gamers as opposed to more hardcore gamers?

It is our view that the Adventure Company range will be more dedicated to the gamers of that type of game—casual gamers. Women are also an important share of our customer base. That’s the positioning of The Adventure Company. The positioning of DreamCatcher is completely different, which is more focused on gamers. For example, Harbinger is an RPG for gamers and Painkiller will be an FPS for gamers.

Can you hint at DC’s line-up beyond what you’re showing here today?

What we’ve presented are globally speaking all the finished games for the first semester. Obviously, we are also going to release games in the second semester. We will have Battlecruiser Generation, a great space strategy / action / RPG game. I think it will be a real multi-genre type of game that will be very interesting, but we’ll present it to you later. We will also get such good names as Schizm 2, one of the leading upcoming adventure sequels.

Speaking of Schizm (which is produced for a large part in Poland)... do you have specific plans for eastern Europe?

I was in Poland just last week. We do have specific plans. We’re now in discussion for agreements in Russia and Poland and also Hungary, so it covers the full area. We have traditional partners over there. We’re really happy about these countries, as they have a good public who knows the games and knows well how to play them. I’m sure that this part of the world will be a very exciting area, definitely.

And what about developers? Quite a lot of lesser known adventure games are being produced in the Czech Republic, for example.

We are already in cooperation with Russian, Polish, Czech and Slovakian studios. They are very good in computing and yes we will further develop our cooperations.

I guess my final question would be, can we expect a bigger flow of European games to the US, now that DC has its own European office?

Definitely. Take Atlantis for example, which has been created by Cryo. Beyond Atlantis is one of the leading products of DreamCatcher in the States. It’s becoming one of the best names in adventures. Tomorrow, perhaps Salammbô could become as big as Atlantis. We definitely want the “European touch” to grow in the US. But it’s not just going one way. It’s a bit dialectic, as we really want to make 1 + 1 = 3. Our European and American divisions become three together, when we take the root of each division and aim for very clear ideas.