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| Fellow Traveller Games | |
| Industry | Video games |
| Founded | October 2011 |
| Founders | Chris Wright |
| Website | fellowtraveller |
Surprise Attack Pty Ltd, trading as Fellow Traveller Games, is an Australian video game publisher. Chris Wright founded the company in 2011 as a marketing consultancy. It announced publishing label Surprise Attack Games in 2013 and relaunched the company as Fellow Traveller Games in 2018.
Surprise Attack was founded in October 2011 by Chris Wright, who previously worked as marketing director for Blue Tongue Entertainment. Wright also assessed game loan applications for Film Victoria, where he noticed that many developers did not consider marketing. This led to founding Surprise Attack as a marketing consultancy firm for independent game developers. [1] In November, Wright commented that many games were being released "without edit" for 15-year-olds in Australia that were restricted in the United States and Europe. He believed that the Australian Classification Board needed an "R18+ rating" for games, which legislation had recently approved implementation for. [2]
In July 2013, it launched publishing label Surprise Attack Games providing funding, marketing and distribution as Australia's first independent indie game publisher. [3] [4] In July 2018, the company relaunched as Fellow Traveller Games, focusing on unusual narrative games. [5] When Kotaku Australia enquired about the changed direction from showcasing Australian games, Wright stated they realised that while the industry appreciated their local publishing, consumers were not interested in where a game was made. He believed an identity with an established flavour or style of game is needed to stand out in the market, noting that 3-4% of the Steam purchases were Australian. [6] In April 2019, Fellow Traveller announced digital convention LudoNarraCon celebrating narrative games. The event ran from 10 to 13 May, with livestreamed panels hosted on storefront Steam. [7]
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