Raphael Colantonio has been making immersive sims for a long time—ever since 2002's Arx Fatalis. But he's still not sure how to effectively describe them to people. In a recent interview with PC Gamer, he explains how big of a marketing hurdle the genre is, and why some brilliant games have suffered because of it.
"If you don't hit the market, it doesn't matter how good your game is," he says. "Prey is a good example of that, where it was sold as an immersive sim. It's an immersive sim in every way one can imagine. But because of that, there were a lot of marketing points that were spent in trying to explain to people with an immersive sim is."
