Intel's LGA 4710 socket-based reference platform, Beechnut City, has been picture & is ready to support Xeon 6 Granite Rapids & Sierra Forest CPUs.
27.03.2024 - 12:02 / gamesindustry.biz
Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox
Games startup Popularium has closed its seed round of funding to the tune of $2 million.
The studio was founded by Magic: The Gathering creator Richard Garfield, former Hearthstone and World of Warcraft developer Jon Bankard and ex-Xbox Live manager Arka Ray.
Popularium is currently working on its debut title Chaos Agents, which it describes as an 'autobattler royale,' combining the 'last person standing' rules with the auto-battling gameplay concept of titles such as Dota Auto-Chess and Vampire Survivors.
"The funding will help us develop, market and launch the Chaos Agents public alpha in the summer," Ray told GamesIndustry.biz. "So far, we have been building with a core team of game developers, this funding will help us expand the team to bring in more support for managing our growing community.
"It will also help support development efforts for the key remaining features that the community is asking for before the Alpha launch, and help launch the first pre-release competitive tournaments for Chaos Agents."
Chaos Agents sees players train up their own superhero and pit its against dozens of other players' characters in a battle royale. Each chaos agent is completely unique to their player. The game is targeting a 2025 release.
Investors in the seed funding round include Palm Drive Capital, The Data Economics Company (a previous employer of Ray), Eden Chen via the A16Z Scout Fund, Reverb Ventures and Dave Nemetz, Pareto, Exit Capital, The Society of Entertainment, Bustle Digital Group's Bryan Goldberg, Gearbox's Dan Black, ex-NFL footballer Dhani Jones, and Ori and the Blind Forest executive producer Avi Ben-Menahem.
"Nearly 50% of the $2 million seed round financing for Popularium has come investors who grew up playing Magic and other games from Popularium's founders," Ray tells us. "Investors have reached out over social media, LinkedIn to express support for Popularium and Richard.
"Fans of Magic and Richard’s games intuitively understand what’s 'cool' about Richard's vision – they have now enabled that vision through their investment dollars."
He goes on to explain that Chaos Agents is just the first step in Popularium's long-term vision, a studio set up to "develop games that push the boundaries of innovation of game design and economics, while creating experiences that gamers embrace and engage with for years."
Despite the reference to economics in this vision, and the fact each Chaos Agent is unique to each player, Popularium has assured that its games do not involve blockchain technology.
"The Popularium team shares some common beliefs that lead our game design and development philosophy," Ray says. "Games should be fun and
Intel's LGA 4710 socket-based reference platform, Beechnut City, has been picture & is ready to support Xeon 6 Granite Rapids & Sierra Forest CPUs.
Fallout: London, the DLC-sized mod for Fallout 4, has been delayed.
A life-long Nintendo gamer made a nostalgic discovery, as they found a 1997 Super Mario RPG official player's guide in their closet. With the success of the Super Mario RPG remake potentially spurring more retro RPG game remakes from Nintendo, the find offered both a pleasant surprise and an unexpected bit of usefulness.
Rockstar Games' flagship GTA Online-focused subscription service, GTA+, is receiving a price hike with no formal announcement. This news is likely to make fans of Grand Theft Auto Online who were already critical of the service even less pleased with it.
Baldur's Gate 3 has been picking up various awards pretty consistently over the past few months, having swept The Game Awards and countless other ceremonies. With only the BAFTAs being the last major awards show left, many were hoping for yet another strong showing for developer Larian Studios. Expectedly, Baldur's Gate 3 has done pretty well, taking home the grand prize for Best Game.
remains a high-quality game even after nine years, with solid storytelling, compelling gameplay, and strong support for mods. Like many classic popular games, fans have poured their time and passion into crafting fun mods for the game, whether to improve the quality of life, better immerse themselves in the world, or have a little fun.
Saber Interactive CEO Matthew Karch believes the ‘$70 game’ will eventually become a thing of the past, as developers move to reduce costs and risk in an increasingly challenging AAA games market.
Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox
Walmart+ has some good news for Xbox gamers looking for the latest deals for Xbox Game Pass. Members of Walmart+ can receive codes for the highest tier of Microsoft's flagship gaming subscription service, Game Pass Ultimate, at no additional cost. However, there's a catch.
Amazon's Fallout adaptation is set to release later this month, and in preparation the cast and crew have started sharing titbits about its production and their work on the series.
Stellar Blade developer Shift Up is already staffing up for its next project. This information has arrived via some newly emerged job listings, which also suggest that Shift Up's new game will share some similarities with Stellar Blade itself.
Xbox Game Pass has confirmed all the games leaving the service on April 15, and unfortunately for fans of the genre, multiple horror games are on the chopping block. Games are removed from Xbox Game Pass every couple of weeks or so, with the departure announcements often coupled with the Wave 1 and Wave 2 new addition reveals to help soften the blow for subscribers.