Tag: CSR Classics

NaturalMotion Games's CEO Torsten Reil spoke at last week's Gaming Insiders Summit. In a presentation titled "Building a next generation games company," he spoke little about the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, and more about the history of NaturalMotion Games and how the company is trying to prepare itself for further success down the road. The company has seen numerous successes and failures, but the one constant has been Reil's commitment to innovate and adapt.NaturalMotion's big break came in the form of their Euphoria physics engine, originally used in Grand Theft Auto IV, as well as later games. The company also began development on various pay to play games, from the Backbreaker series to mobile versions of various board games, such as Jenga. Releasing these pay to play titles wasn't really delivering the results that Reil and his team were hoping for, which lead to the 2011 release of NaturalMotion's first free to play game, My Horse. It was simply a game about taking care of (and interacting with) a horse."While My Horse wasn't the breakout success the company was hoping for, it taught Reil and his team some lessons about what players want out of their experience. Most importantly, players want to have some sort of emotional connection with what they're playing, especially a sense of ownership. This led to the team brainstorming ideas of how to implement this into a game. It eventually led to the creation of NaturalMotion's mobile hit CSR Racing. Reil explained how there were already quality mobile racing games at the time, such as Real Racing 2. However, none of the existing titles could pass the "Starbucks test" of being able to complete a race while waiting for your drink at a coffee shop.