Today marks an important day for the recently released Revenge Of The Savage Planet. It has officially been out for 1 month. Typically 1 month marks a time of reflection. Sales, critical successes, patches and more.

For Revenge Of The Savage Planet it’s a bit of all of the above. They just released a large “day 30” patch and they’ve already hit a million players after just a few weeks.

While the 1 million players is great for a small indie, it of course comes with the caveat of Xbox Game Pass. The numbers aren’t sales, but that doesn’t mean it’s always a bad thing, does it?

To that end we spoke with the games creative director Alex Hutchinson. As part of our discussion we will discuss what Game Pass meant for the Raccoon Logic team and how it affects the industry.

As far as a critical success goes, Revenge of The Savage Planet has been one of the better received indies of the year. Critics have loved it, including our own reviewer who scored it an 8. Players seem to be enjoying it as well.

So what’s next for both the game and the studio? How happy have they been with the reception? Let’s find out in our extensive interview with Alex Hutchinson. You can also find our interview with Alex before the launch here.

We spoke a little bit before the launch of Revenge Of The Savage Planet, how have you been and how does it feel to be on the other side of release day now?

It’s always a combination of excitement and relief getting a game out the door. Each one is a minor miracle, and this one seems to have been well received, so that’s an even bigger miracle. It’s a long way from writing some ideas on a whiteboard to iterating on bits of the game to polishing and bug testing it. In the same amount of time it took us to make this game with a team of 30, my son went from grade two to starting high school.

That’s a crazy thing to think about when you put  time in that perspective. I assume it took a bit less time than Journey did because you already had some assets in place?

In the end it took around the same as we made a much bigger game, and while we built on the code base, the artists ended up creating 90% new assets. Also we had to restart the company under a new name, find office space, hire some new people and get through the tail end of the pandemic. Getting people back in the office 3 days a week helped a lot in terms of positive collaboration and learning fro more junior employees.

You’ve already announced over a million players. I’m not sure we ever got a figure for Journey To The Savage Planet but I think it’s safe to say it didn’t hit a million as quickly. Has reality even set in yet that so many were interested and played Revenge Of The Savage Planet yet?

It’s very hard to get accurate numbers on Journey as 505 owns the total publishing rights to that, but Microsoft told us in the end we cleared at least 5 million players in their estimation, but you’re right I think Revenge has grown much more quickly. It makes it all worth it to think of people playing and (hopefully) enjoying the game. The whole point of doing the work is to get our idea into people’s hands so that has been very encouraging.

Of course, a lot of those players likely came from Xbox Game Pass. You put out a social media post talking about how it wasn’t sales and that a million players mean something different than it did maybe 10 years ago. First off, have you been happy with the actual sales figures?

We’ve seen rapid growth in wish lists and lots of people playing on Game Pass which is where most of the traffic has been, but sales have been good. It’s will be a steady seller if it is anything like the first game. We think that because we focused on fun and a strong tone it will age well, or at least better than if we’d focused on a cutting edge tech feature.

Some will say player count doesn’t mean much because someone can play for 5 minutes and never touch a game again and count. While that’s true it does seem like most are enjoying and playing the game a lot. 

With something like Game Pass how does that change things from your perspective as a studio? A lot of people will point to it cannibalizing sales, and to a degree that is likely true. But on the flip side it also gets the game into a lot more people’s hands which can lead to more word of mouth and maybe actually more sales on other platforms?

It’s always a balance between getting the word out and actually trying to stay in business and make some money. Games are incredibly expensive to make, and there’s a lot of competition. Personally, I think the whole industry should agree to only allow games on subscription services a year after release. We need to mimic the old movie model of having it in theatres then on DVD then on TV or streaming. The current structure will prove very damaging to anyone who is not owned by a publisher soon if it continues.

We’ve seen a few in the industry take that stance lately while others have said it’s good, so it’s always interesting to see the different perspectives. Naturally I have to ask though, if that is your stance what made you take a deal to join a subscription day 1? 

The hope was that the exposure would lead to people who got the game as part of their subscription to at least buy the little add on pack or to encourage a friend to buy it on another platform so they could play it together but we haven’t seen that, or at least not yet. What we’ve seen is that content has been devalued and that people are less willing to pay for things, which in the long run will likely mean less games being made and a lot more studios going under. 

Plus I’m sure it’s nice having a bit of a security blanket so to speak when it comes to a Game Pass check coming in and guaranteeing a certain level of revenue. 

Years ago the check for subscription services was big enough to make a big difference, but these days unless your game is tiny, or you’re a rare enormous brand, it isn’t much. But MS have been amazing partners and we’re so glad to be working with them.

Switching to the actual game now, a few online have been running with the theory that Revenge Of The Savage Planet isn’t just a fictional story, that there’s quite a bit of truth behind it when it comes to Raccoon Logic and Google. We mentioned it’s fairly similar in our first interview but now that it’s out, do you want to come out and say the idea is really your story displayed in a game form.

We took a lot of inspiration from real events, but we took a lot from many different awful big companies. Our goal was to throw rocks at the entirety of modern corporate culture and the awful black rot at its heart, not one specific company. These organizations are big, empty, soulless machines that are doing their best to leech the life out of humanity and culture in the name of greed.

Just so were clear though, there was no goo slung between you and Google?

None between us and them, but you’ll see that Google spends a lot of time in courts if you follow the news.

What are the plans now moving forward. Journey To The Savage Planet had a lot of additional content added after its release, is that the plan again or do you want to move on to something new? I’m always curious how developers feel about this. I’d think unless you are a Games as a Service the benefits of more dlc aren’t worth it compared to just creating a new sequel or the next game.

We will be supporting the game up until the end of the year, to fix a few things, add some content, some sexy new modes, and a few other surprises! But at the same time we are hard at work on prep for the new game. We have a bunch of ideas we are pitching and thinking about. So stay tuned!

Safe to say the next project has been greenlit then based on that statement?

Not yet but we’ve been having some very positive conversations. It’s not easy to get deals at the moment, but we’re optimistic!

Speaking of the next game, are you wanting to continue the Savage Planet IP, either now or in the future, or do you think 2 games is where you want to leave it?

I think in the long run a trilogy sounds good, but we may try something else first. It’s a fun and big universe to play around in, so one day I’m sure we’ll get back to it.

What’s maybe one thing that you either had to cut out of the game, whether you just couldn’t implement it properly or didn’t have time, or had an idea of putting in but never made it into the game? And could we see it in future updates/another sequel?

We wanted to make a meat world, where the crevasses would be open sores, and the mountains would be pimples, and all the creatures were like head lice or ticks and things living on it. We were going to call it Innard Space. I still like the idea… not sure we could get away with it though!

That actually sounds cool and unique. I think that’s one of the great things about gaming, you can get wacky and have a fun time doing it. That sounds like some dlc we could get behind for sure. 

I’d like to thank Alex for taking the time again to speak with me and for being so open and candid. Revenge Of The Savage Planet is currently available for Xbox Series S/X, PlayStation 5 and Pc.