Resolution Games announced today that they have closed $6 million in funding, which is the largest round ever by a VR game development company. The round was lead by Google Ventures.
Resolution Games was started by Tommy Palm, a legendary game designer and former “Games Guru” for King; where he oversaw massive projects like the immensely popular Candy Crush Saga, a game which at its peak was making over $1.5 billion dollars a year. “We’re focused on VR for the long run with nimble, small teams creating lots of new concepts, establishing best practices and quickly landing on successful titles to add content for emerging VR devices,” said Palm.
The team has already released one title, Solitaire Jester, for the Gear VR but have plans for more. “To date we’ve already created seven prototype games,” says Palm, “[we] are working on our next release, which will be a fishing themed VR game to be released in early 2016.” The fishing game, which is currently untitled, will feature an “adventure story… with fishing as a core gameplay mechanic,” according to Palm. The game “is not a fishing simulator by any means.” There is no word yet on what type of input the game will utilize, or what platforms they are targeting.
So I know what you’re thinking, ‘this means the free to play model is coming to VR too?’ Turns out not necessarily.
“Looking at the market short term,” says Palm, “free to play is not necessarily going to be this thing for the launch of the Rift for example.” Palm realizes that the model has thus far proved highly profitable, allowing teams to collect millions of tiny micro transactions which are priced within the realm of impulse. Obviously the money that model can bring in is great for the developer but oftentimes it can lead to a really bad experience for the consumer. “I’m more interested in the accessibly,” Palm adds, “in having a consumer download something for free to see if it is something that they want to spend money on.” Only time will tell which models of monetization will work best for VR, especially as it works its way to a mass scale.
