After 17 years of Serious Sam’s domination, a new Croatian video game is about to become a global hit.
The new Croatian computer game called SCUM is on its way to becoming the second most successful gaming title from Croatia. And, according to the initial reaction of players at Twitch and YouTube, it is possible it might even overtake Serious Sam. SCUM was released in an early access mode on Wednesday pm the largest worldwide online store of computer games, reports Poslovni.hr on August 31, 2018.
This means that the game is not yet completely developed. Despite that, a few hours before the official launch, Andrej Levenski, a co-founder and technical director of Gamepires, confirmed that there were as many as 350,000 players from around the globe who are interested in buying the game. “Just yesterday, we received 30,000 new pre-orders for our game. These people are just waiting to click on the ‘Buy’ button,” says Levenski.
Levenski adds that they will be pleased if they manage to sell 100,000 copies of the game quickly. “That is a psychological limit beyond which the sky is the limit,” says Levenski. He adds that later he expects higher revenues since similar games are usually sold for at least 30 dollars a copy. “We have deliberately started with a lower price to reward our first players,” Levenski says.
This is the second major title of the Gamepires studio, after the success of Gas Guzzlers, which combined car racing and shooting.
SCUM is a multiplayer 3D game of survival, located in the so-called open world. Technically, this is one of the most demanding games ever made in Croatia. The gameplay is located in a near future when the TEC1 corporation manages prisons. To reduce costs, the corporation buys islands and places prisoners there, leaving them to fend for themselves.
The game has been designed and developed by Gamepires, but its co-founder Levenski says that they would not be able to do that without financial support from Croteam. The most famous Croatian game development studio, which authored Serious Sam, has invested in the development of SCUM.
The industry’s key players are already praising the new Croatian game. On Wednesday morning, director and founder of Epic Games Tim Sweeny tweeted about it. Gamepires say they have been contacted by representatives from Intel, NVIDIA, AMD and other companies. “They are interested in co-operation, and the best thing is that they know so much about us and our game. When we ask them how, they say they have been following us for two years,” Levenski explains.
At Twitch, a YouTube-like service for computer game players, SCUM had more than 230,000 competitive viewers who watched streamers playing the game. This is the first time that a Croatian game took the first place in the standings at Twitch and left behind some of the most famous titles: Fortnite, League of Legends, Harthstone, World of Warcraft and Counter Strike.
Translated from Poslovni.hr (reported by Bernard Ivezić).
