When AdHoc Studio was first pitching Dispatch, they really could've done with a crystal ball that showed how many copies the game would sell upon release. Investors and publishers struggled to get behind a game that used the Telltale playbook, for lack of a better explanation, and yet AdHoc's leads knew they had to strive for the game they wanted to make.
"When we'd go and pitch potential investors and publishers, they'd point to the data and say there weren't enough recent successes to feel confident investing money," AdHoc cofounder Dennis Lenart told PC Gamer. "The common sentiment was that the genre of games we like to make are niche—or worse, dead."
"We thought they were wrong, which was definitely a mix of arrogance and stupidity," added fellow cofounder Nick Herman. "We felt like, if we wouldn't push back, who would? And while we didn't yet know how we were going to do it, we were aligned on the right things."
Lenart agreed with the sentiment, saying "just because we can make an open world action RPG doesn't mean we should. Whatever we do, we want it to be great and across the entire project."
Whether you enjoy the type of game Dispatch is or not, it's hard to argue against its successes. The superhero management sim/choice-based narrative adventure proved an immediate hit, showing that yes, there is still a demand for this type of game.