VCs want Creators

TGIF. Did you know the United States Navy is training the next generation of video game speedrunners? Last year “Spike” became the first California sea lion to complete training on a game system Navy scientists created for their marine mammals. Will 2024 see Spike atop the Super Mario 64 record books?

—Derek Neville, Tim Rhyne

MAIN QUEST: VC funds partnering with Creators

VC funding fell close to 75% from 2022 to 2023 and the firms are now turning towards creators to increase their success rate when shelling out the cash. VCs, such as A16Z GAMES and 1AM Gaming, have begun to find and build partnerships between creators and their portfolio game studios.

Through these partnerships, creators can “share in the success of the game companies themselves” and VCs can tap creators as experts at identifying successful games in advance, helping to weed out the potential flops. Creators additionally bring social credibility to the games, engaged target audiences, and have a strong familiarity with content platforms.

The creators will have access to more resources and investment opportunities including game studios and game technology companies. As creators typically only interact with studios as a line item on a larger paid marketing campaign, their deeper involvement can also mean deeper returns than the traditional one-off transactions thanks to a VC’s ability to “build enterprise value.”

Step Back: Marketing dollars and positions were the first to go when funding began to slow. VCs act as intermediaries to get creators into studios to continue saving this spend, de-risk large projects, and help well-established creators source new long-term opportunities.

HUD

• 🥊 Riot Games has revealed new information about its upcoming fighting game as part of its 2024 Year in Preview. The game, formally known as Project L, now has the official title 2XKO and is expected to be released on PS5, Xbox S|X, and PC in 2025.

• 📈 Nvidia released its 4Q earnings, showing quarterly revenue of $22.1 billion, up 265% from last year. 18.4 billion of that revenue comes from its AI business. The announced revenue beat analyst expectations, and led to a surge of after-hours trading.

• 🕶️ Sony announced it is working on bringing PC support to the PS VR2, allowing players to use their headsets with both the PS5 and PC. The move would make the PS VR2 an instant competitor with the Meta Quest 3 and Valve Index in the PC VR hardware game.

MAJOR W

• 🎮 Larian Studios announced that is working on a plan for Baldur’s Gate 3 mod support, expected to be released later this year, to help the modding community prevent issues that arise with hotfixes and patches. The plan is cross-platform, allowing Xbox and PlayStation to have the same support and access to mods as PC players.

• 🍾 In its first month, Palworld has officially hit 25 million players, with 15 million on Steam and 10 million on Xbox. The developers plan to continue to prioritize bug fixes and cheat prevention.

F IN THE CHAT

• 🏈 Today is the first day college football players can opt-in to being in Electronic Arts EA Sports’ College Football 25. Players who opt-in will all get paid the same $600 and a free copy of the game. While some are happy to get paid anything, others are calling for a boycott of the game, saying the players were not represented in negotiations.

• 🌇 EA is sunsetting two of its mobile games, EA Sports MLB Tap Sports and F1 Mobile Racing, and laying off a small number of staff who were tied to the games. While EA will continue its partnership with F1 through its console and PC game, it is unclear if this is the end of its partnership with MLB.

CAREER CORNER

• Music Partnerships Director - Epic Games (Cary, NC)

• Product Marketing Manager, Global Gaming Activations - TikTok (Seattle, WA)

• Gaming Producer - Chick-fil-A (Atlanta, GA)

HIVE MIND

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