"Pixelfish is a games development company with a difference. We recognise that unlike other forms of media – magazines, TV, radio, internet, the games market is not yet a mass market.  Millions of people do not yet play computer games, and we believe there are two reasons behind this.

1. The price of a game - £40 – is too high for people to take a risk on something they don’t know if they will like.

2. The publishers are only interested in games they believe can shift hundreds of thousands of units at £40 each – so new and innovative titles, which might attract people who don’t enjoy driving, shooting or commanding an army – rarely get made.

When we established our company, we didn’t want to take a piece of the current games market pie – we’re not looking to compete with triple-A console titles. We believe there is another (possibly bigger) pie out there in the form of people who have never bought a computer game in their lives.  We want to create games for people who watch TV and listen to radio, have a PC or a Mac, but would never buy a console. We want our games to sell for the same price as a video or DVD – so that people will buy them impulsively, or as gifts, and discover that they enjoy computer games too.

We are producing games with modest budgets (£200 – 500k), and we had believed that the publishers who lose millions on yet-another-driving-game several times a year might relish the opportunity to take a low-cost risk to break into a new market. Sadly we couldn’t have been more wrong. They think they’ve got it all sorted – and they don’t want to rock the comfortable and familiar model.

The industry points to continuing console sales as sign that all is well with their world.  We believe that sales of new consoles into households who already own one or more consoles isn’t growth – it’s cannibalisation. Unless their household income doubles, homes with two consoles are unlikely to buy twice as many games.

TV has a penetration of over 99% in the UK.  Why is the games industry content with its narrow demographic?  

It’s not going to be easy, but we're hoping to change that."

- Lindsey Fallow, Pixelfish Studios

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