We believe in the power of play. We believe games are good**.** They foster community and belonging. They inspire creativity and imagination. They help people build problem solving skills and aid in child development. They provide a canvas for storytellers and designers to create art. They push the boundaries on new technology. Today, everyone from professional athletes to world-class CEOs plays games ("I firmly believe I learned more about building businesses from playing Starcraft than I've learned from business books" - Tobi Lutke, CEO Shopify). Most importantly, they’re fun.
Our Mission is ****to make it easier for game creators to start, run, and grow their businesses.
There’s a massive transition happening in the gaming industry right now. Gaming has become a full-blown cultural movement, and many fail to appreciate how it has already become the dominant form of leisure and entertainment for an entire generation. 3 billion people consider themselves a ‘gamer’ and the industry generated $340B last year alone–conservatively 2-3x more than movies, music and TV combined. Time spent in ‘gaming’ has expanded from just playing a game to include watching others play games, attending competitive esports events or virtual concerts, and just hanging out in virtual worlds like Minecraft, Roblox, and Fortnite.
But as culture has evolved, technology has advanced, and more people are gravitating towards games, the industry incumbents that run the show haven’t kept up. Developers and players are putting pressure on platforms to update their restrictive policies and business models to catch up with the state-of-play today, but they really, really don’t want to budge. And why would they when they’re making out like bandits by upholding the status quo?!
Our big bet is that by empowering game creators with better technology, we can make the entire ecosystem more welcoming, efficient, creative, and fun for all.
If we execute spectacularly well, here’s what we think will happen:
Creators and players will get the power back: the platforms and middlemen will no longer be setting the rules. Creators will have more flexibility and ownership in how they acquire, monetize, engage, and build relationships with their users. Players will share in that flexibility and ownership in a way that allows them to gravitate towards the experiences and creators that they find the most satisfying.
A more efficient, and fair, market. where value is created on craft, quality, trust, collective participation and everyone shares in the upside.
Lower barriers to entry: While the barriers to building a game have never been lower, the barriers to succeeding have never been higher. By building a more flexible and distributed ecosystem, the conditions will be more favorable for new (and lower-resourced) creators to participate in it.
More developers, more games, and more players: that represent more perspectives and support a wider spectrum of creative vision.
Better games. With a more diverse ecosystem, a financial model that doesn’t hamstring makers, and creators freed up to focus on craft instead of platform spec sheets, games will get better. Experiences will get richer. Technology will advance faster. Creation will become easier. And the flywheel will spin, and spin.
More fun and connection. Games are powerful vehicles for play, storytelling, creativity, community, and self-expression. A connection through a game is a connection through authentic joy. Couldn’t we all do with a little more of that in our lives?
Let’s build the future we want to see in gaming.