Netmarble Lead Producer Discusses Coronavirus' Affect On Their Mobile Game Business
Travis Marshall is the lead producer for Netmarble which created The King of Fighters video game franchise. They are integrating WWE Superstars into their games and Marshall discussed his level of pro wrestling fandom when he joined The Wrestling Inc Daily podcast.
"Growing up in elementary school I got into video games and wrestling. So, I had all of the video game platforms and I also had my WWE wrestling set. I used The Rock a lot as my action figure and would throw down with Rock and Sting and other wrestling superstars," recalled Marshall. "So, getting the opportunity to possibly put WWE Superstars into The King of Fighters All-Star was something I was very excited about for the reason I was a huge fan of WWE especially during The Rock's rise to fame."
Marshall got the opportunity to create dialogue for The Rock in the video game and he recalled that as being one of his favorite parts of production.
"That was a lot of the fun there. Getting to review all of The Rock animations and figuring out how he would play. My inner fan boy was going crazy," admitted Marshall."
The entire entertainment industry has been affected by the coronavirus and Marshall discussed how the video game industry has reacted to the pandemic.
"I think pretty much every video game is working from home and has been for 80+ days. So, we started working from home two-and-a-half months ago and since then we've had challenges with communication," admitted Marshall. "It's easy to forget to loop in people when everyone's at home. We've had to double up efforts on what types of updates we send and doing more video-conferencing so we're not losing track of what's going on. That's been the main hurdle ? this work from home transition."
With more people staying at home due to local orders, Marshall was asked if they've seen more business during the pandemic.
"From what we can see from the trends, they amount of people playing these games has been consistent, maybe slightly on the rise. But the COVID-19 situation hasn't negatively affected how many people are playing," Marshall said before being asked about the future of eSports.
"I think in general, eSports has been on the rise for the past few years and lot of companies are putting more of a focus towards that in it having a future in the industry. So, I definitely think we'll see more eSports opportunities in the coming years."
Netmarble Corp., one of the fastest-growing mobile game companies worldwide, is proud to reveal an official collaboration with WWE to bring its roster of larger-than-life Superstars to the world of THE KING OF FIGHTERS ALLSTAR. Fans can collect and add WWE Superstars The Rock, John Cena, Undertaker, Becky Lynch, Seth Rollins, and Kofi Kingston to their respective rosters. Different versions of The Rock and Kingston will also be available for free to anybody who downloads the game through Wednesday, June 3.
Travis' full interview with Wrestling Inc aired as part of a recent episode of our podcast, The Wrestling Inc. Daily. Subscribe to get the latest episodes as soon as it's released Monday – Friday afternoon by clicking here.