Buy Crackdown for its great game, not the Halo 3 invite, says dev

In a soon-to-be-published interview with CVG, Crackdown senior designer Stephen Iannetta says that after playing the demo he thinks gamers will "buy Crackdown on the basis of Crackdown" and not just for an invite to the Halo 3 multiplayer beta.

"Prior to the demo coming out there were a lot of people saying 'wait a minute, this is just a way to sell Crackdown'," he says, "and I think the more they played the demo the more they realised 'no wait, this is a great game'".

The multiplayer beta invites are due to ship with all initial copies of Crackdown, one of three methods to gain access when it launches this spring.

"I think it's really clever marketing by Microsoft", Iannetta continues. "I think the people that have played the demo and seen the game will actually realise it's a selling point for Crackdown and it's not used to get more copies out of it."

Iannetta also told CVG that he thinks that the two games are "complementary products" and that "people who enjoy playing Halo will enjoy playing Crackdown".