Timesplitters developer says shooters don't make money

Free Radical co-founder Steve Ellis feels there's no room in the shooter market for anything but Battlefield and Call of Duty.

Ellis, who was an integral part of Goldeneye 64's development before going on to help found the Timesplitters developer, said other shooters just can't compete.

"Nobody really buys any FPSes unless they're called Call Of Duty," he told Edge.

"I guess Battlefield did okay, but aside from that pretty much every FPS loses money."

Ellis said Crysis 2, for example, came nowhere near recovering its development costs, and as such, publishers aren't interested in backing shooters.

"I spent the whole of 2008 going round talking to publishers trying to sign up Timesplitters 4," he said.

"There just isn't the interest there in doing anything that tries to step away from the rules of the genre - no one wants to do something that's quirky and different, because it's too much of a risk. And a large part of that is the cost of doing it."

When Timesplitters 4 failed to secure a publisher, a floundering Free Radical was purchased by Crytek. Ellis has since left the company to form mobile studio Crash Lab.