Slant Six Games, which recently completed work on Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City, has released zombie bowling on iOS and announced work on three more mobile products.
Console Market
In the console segment of the gaming industry, these are not the best times: the growth rate has slowed down, sales are falling, the once-fed retail is losing ground. In addition, the market is anxiously awaiting the eighth generation of consoles, which, at the moment, it is unclear when they will be released and what they will be.
We are assured that games for the next generation of consoles will resemble CG videos. It’s funny, but we were told the same thing when the current generation consoles were released. This is a screenshot from Star Wars 1313. There are also good trends – it is cheaper to develop an AAA project for consoles now than five years ago (at least, the authors with Inside Mobile Apps insist on this).
If in 2007 the development of a God of War II level project cost $ 45 million, now it revolves around $20-30. However, this is a rather controversial thesis, given the budget of projects like Call of Duty and Starcraft II.
The Choice of Slant Six Games
But the difficult financial situation on the market still makes publishers tighten their belts. According to the guys from Slant Six Games (they released Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City online shooter this year), that’s why it’s unrealistic for independent companies that develop AAA titles to find funding now. In such conditions, we have to change: switch to the social and mobile markets.
The Bowling Dead is the latest project of Slant Six Games. Made on Unity, publishes the game Activison.Slant Six Games was able to do this quite successfully, although its management claims that they are not on mobile phones forever.
A week ago, the company released a crazy bowling game about zombies on iOS. Three more projects are in line, including Galactic Reign for Windows Phone 8 and Strata Scavenger for iOS.
Their company develops on its own Hexen console engine. A strange decision, considering that the company made its first mobile project – The Bowling Dead – on Unity. As one of the developers noted politically correctly: “Unity is great for some things, but our engine is great for the rest.”
Another trend
It is not uncommon for a console developer to enter the wilds of the mobile market today. Peter Molyneux, the Finns from Remedy, has already become active on it. Another thing is that for teams like Slant Six Games, which produced medium–sized projects in the “big” industry, the transition to the mobile league is a chance to shoot. We wish them good luck.