The attempts to bring "AAA quality" games to mobile - and why they are failing

Last year, I wrote about my experiences in what I saw as a tech arms race in AAA PC/console games. To recap: I've gone from playing games because of their impressive use of technology to playing games because they're fun. I've slowly come to discover the obvious: The two are not corellated. I have grown increasingly frustrated by AAA's insistence on maximizing hardware use regardless of game's actual needs - an insistence that's largely responsible for out of control complexity and costs.

Announcing Hades' Star

Today, my partner and I are excited to announce Hades’ Star, an original, social, persistent online strategy game designed for mobile devices. The game’s newly launched web site has some initial information, and will be updated with more information over the next several months as development continues.

With this announcement post, I wanted to focus on two things. First, some personal background on why create this particular kind of game. Second, some thoughts on the current business environment on mobile platforms, including a promise of sharing any resources we can with other small studios making service-based games.

My recent friction-full experiences with non-mobile games

Approaching the mobile games market as a small team in 2016

Subterfuge was my favorite game of 2015, but I never want to play it again

Vainglory vs Clash Royale, and the future of “hardcore” games on mobile

The strange double-standards around F2P ethics discussions