Shanghai studio Spicy Horse, founded by the creative director of the iconic American McGee’s Alice, has reduced staff and is going to abandon further development of F2P projects.
This was announced in his Twitter feed by the founder and CEO of the studio American McGee (American McGee). According to him, the company will have a key team that will move away from the development of shareware projects.
“In recent years, [the] F2P market has become a very violent place. After five years and seven projects, I think it’s time to do something new,” McGee said at NeoGAF.
Recall that in 2014, the company was already cutting staff after the failure of the shareware action RPG Akaneiro: Demon Hunters. Of the $1.7 million invested in the development of the game, only $ 300 thousand returned.
The latest game of Spicy Horse is Critter Academy, a mobile game in the tag-of-war genre, in which there are also many elements and mechanics of the popular Heroes Charge. Before that, with the support of GREE McGee also produced the battlers Heroes of Night and The Gate. None of them showed good box office performance in the United States.
Source: Gamasutra