Thu, Sep 29, 2011 | 15:11 BST

Willits: New IP creation needs to be considered a franchise from day one

Tim Willits, id Software’s creative director, holds the belief that when creating a new IP, a developer should think of it as a franchise from the moment it’s conceived.

Speaking in an interview with GI.biz, Willits said that on day one, id knew it wanted to make RAGE a franchise, instead of a one-off release.

“You need to made a franchise,” he said. “Especially for us. We’re doing everything we can to turn Rage into a franchise, please let it sell so we can make another one.

“We definitely, from the get go, planned to make this a much bigger franchise, a much richer world, that allows us to have different games, and we can make more mobile games, heck, we could make a social game with Rage if we wanted to. And hopefully we can make a Rage 2. Hopefully.”

Considering the work that went into the technical aspects of the game, it only made sense for the team to think of RAGE as a franchise due not only to accumulated man-hours, but the engine’s expense as well.

“It’s huge investment in new technology, it’s taken us a long time to make the engine, we’re definitely leveraging this technology of course with the next Doom game and hopefully with Rage 2 and some of our other titles,” said Willits.

“From a business standpoint, making a part two is always smart.”

RAGE is out October 4 in the US and October 7 in Europe.