Square Enix Montreal Is Planning to Explore New Mobile Ideas
Square Enix Montreal, the developer behind Lara Croft Go, Hitman Go, and Deus Ex Go, is no longer creating any new entries in the franchise. The news came from Patrick Naud, the studio’s head, who claims that the premium mobile games market is getting harder to succeed in.
“I have to say no [we’re not working on other Go games], I’m sorry,” he said.
“The Go series was a great adventure for us as a studio,” he continued. “We’ve done the three games, we’ve seen the wind. The hardest element is making premium games on mobile.”
Naud claims that the “premium mobile market is diminishing” due to the increase in high-quality titles that are available for free.
“Despite the critical success and the great revenue we’ve had, it’s sad to see that our games are only played by a small slither of the population because of the price point,” he said. “That’s such a big barrier for mobile users. A lot of people consume mobile games only and they have all these options, all these games; why should they invest money in this one unless they’re very convinced?”
“That doesn’t mean they won’t spend in-game, but they want to spend on a game that they’re sure they’re going to like,” he added. “The perception of choice makes it that even if it’s only $5, that’s too much.”
But Square Enix Montreal still wants to make mobile games—they’re just going to have to take a different approach and generate some new concepts..
“The focus is still tailoring high-end, high-quality pristine mobile experiences,” Naud said. “If we are to work on a known IP, our treatment will somewhat reinvent that IP. If we are to work on a new genre, our treatment—I hope—will be a style that’s cloned by everyone else.”
“There’s still the ambition of crafting the best games in the industry,” he continued. “If we keep that as part of our DNA, we’re going to engage users for years and years to come, which is the plan now.”