Founder and director of Hazelight Studios Josef Fares was recently featured in an interview on MinnMaxShow where he answered 127 questions about their upcoming game Split Fiction and the future of the studio. In the interview, Fares said the studio will never include microtransactions in their game.
In the interview Fares was asked, in the acquisition boom who most wanted to buy Hazelight. Although he didn’t mention names, he confirmed that there has been interest from various companies to acquire Hazelight Studios.
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“But Hazelight is not for sale,” Fares said without flinching. “And we’ll always do what we do and we will love what we do, period!”
“And we will never be on the stock market as well. Get that in, that will never happen. And we will never microtransactions, no bulls**t. None of those sh*t. We’ll just make games. Period!”
Hazelight is a Swedish game studio founded by Josef Fares in 2014. They are based in Stockholm and have offices located in Münchenbryggeriet. They said they aim to push the boundaries for interactive storytelling and engaging emotional experiences. The studio had around 80 people for the making of Split Fiction.
Towards the end of the interview, Fares revealed that during the making of Brothers released in 2013, Hazelight Studios had reached out to Dice and Avalanche but they rejected the game. He believes they are probably regretting that decision now.
Fares was reminded that he promised $1,000 to anyone who got bored of playing It Takes Two. He confirmed that no one took him up on that challenge and this time he is promising $10,000 to anyone who gets bored of Split Fiction.
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While there was talk about It Takes Two movie, Fares said that Hollywood is more talk and less action and that he doesn’t care about it anymore. When asked which of the games in Hazelight’s catalog he would love to make a sequel for. Fares’ reply was It Takes Two.
Fares believes the only reason why Split Fiction will not win The Game Awards is if GTA 6 comes out. Not many players like the idea of predatory microtransactions in games and Hazelight is showing developers how it’s done.
