As reported by GameSpot on Friday, June 6, former staff of Rockstar Games, Riot Games and Playfish have teamed up to form a new studio–satirically named “Super Evil Megacorp”–that will be working on MOBA title for tablet devices.
Entitled “ Vain Glory ”, Super Evil Megacorp is aiming to recreate the success of League of Legends by launching the game on hardware that’s increasingly becoming more popular and more commonplace among the populace.
Megacorp’s executive director and former Playfish co-founder Kristian Segerstrale states that the iPad and iPhone ” are capable of these incredible core gaming experiences, but the software just hasn’t been made yet. ”
” There’s been a bunch of games that sort of market themselves as ‘core’, ” Segerstrale continued, “ where they look core in their marketing messaging, they look core in their first five minutes of gameplay, and then it turns out they are very shallow. We feel like it just hasn’t been done yet, except with the possible exception of Hearthstone … which I think is the first piece of software that’s been crafted for tablets that actually shows what the hardware is capable of. ”
Megacorp’s CEO Bob Daly has put together a team of around 16 members (including the former Riot, Rockstar and Playfish devs) to work on Vain Glory . Unlike the typical 5v5 setup that is the norm of MOBA titles, Vain Glory will be a 3v3 brawler, and it’ll be developed with its own proprietary graphical engine.
According to GameSpot, Vain Glory is currently being Beta tested in Southeast Asia, with a global rollout of Beta invites to begin in the next few months. Daly also states that the development team will specifically target League of Legends and Dota 2 players.
While it’s understandable for people to be a more than a little sceptical of the concept, Segerstrale believes that working on an in-house engine telegraphs the studio’s intentions. He also believes that unorthodox games in the realm of tablet gaming–such as a MOBA–will no doubt break into the platform at some point in the near future.
” If you think about Apple’s announcement of Metal , ” said Segerstrale, ” it shows how very serious game engines are.
“ I think the pointers are there, but nobody has made the defining software for these devices, ” Segerstrale continued. “ Somebody is going to do that. In the next 12, to 18, to 24 months, somebody is going to come out with a defining core product for tablets. We’re working very hard to be that company, but it could be somebody else. It will happen. ”
Super Evil Megacorp’s full funding for the game totals to $15 million. Be sure to check out Vain Glory’s announcement trailer embedded below.
[ GameSpot ]