Slingshot Cartel LLP is a British

video game developer A video game developer is a software developer specializing in video game development – the process and related disciplines of creating video games. A game developer can range from one person who undertakes all tasks to a large business with em ...

based in

Leamington Spa Royal Leamington Spa, commonly known as Leamington Spa or simply LeamingtonEven more colloquially, also referred to as Lem or Leam (). (), is a spa town and civil parish in Warwickshire, England. Originally a small village called Leamington Pri ...

. It was founded in January 2017 by four former

FreeStyleGames Ubisoft Leamington (formerly FreeStyleGames Limited) was a British video game developer and a studio of Ubisoft based in Leamington Spa. Founded in November 2002 by six industry veterans formerly of Codemasters and Rare, the studio was bought ...

employees.

History

Slingshot Cartel was founded by Jamie Jackson, Gareth Morrison, Jonathan Napier, and David Osbourn, four former employees of

. FreeStyleGames had previously developed ''

Guitar Hero Live ''Guitar Hero Live'' is a 2015 rhythm game developed by FreeStyleGames and published by Activision. It is the seventh main instalment and the twelfth overall instalment in the ''Guitar Hero'' series. The game was released for PlayStation 3, ...

'' for its parent company,

Activision Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one o ...

. Despite positive reviews upon its release in 2015, the game was commercially unsuccessful and Activision downsized FreeStyleGames on 1 April 2016, laying off roughly 50 staff. Jackson, Morrison, Napier, and Osbourn left the studio later that year, stating their disappointment with how typical developer–publisher interactions led to such situations. They founded Slingshot Cartel, which they announced on 31 January 2017. The founders' experience in developing ''Guitar Hero Live'', which used

full-motion video Full-motion video (FMV) is a video game narration technique that relies upon pre-recorded video files (rather than sprites, vectors, or 3D models) to display action in the game. While many games feature FMVs as a way to present information duri ...

extensively, was more in line with the traditional approach to filmmaking, where they had only a few full-time staff on the game throughout its development while bringing in other departments or outsourcing to other developers when necessary, at one point have over one thousand people involved. Jackson said that, for example, an artist for a game may only be needed 60% of the development time. Slingshot Cartel planned to apply the same principles for the development of their games to avoid the monolithic nature of traditional game development, using their experience in the industry and their range of contacts to bring in the appropriate people at the right time. By the time of the studio's announcement, Slingshot Cartel was working on two titles, one in collaboration with

Virtuos Virtuos Ltd is a video game development company headquartered in Singapore with studios across Asia, Europe, and North America. Virtuos specializes in game development and art production for AAA consoles, PC, and mobile titles – working as an ...

and another

developer. They announced their first game, ''The DRG Initiative'', in February 2017. The studio anticipated developing titles within the growing

esports Esports (), short for electronic sports, is a form of competition using video games. Esports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players, played individually or as teams. ...

field.

References

{{Reflist 2017 establishments in England British companies established in 2017 Companies based in Leamington Spa Video game companies established in 2017 Video game companies of the United Kingdom Video game development companies