Lucky’s Tale developer Playful Studios has netted $23 million in funding to create viewer-friendly games.
As reported by VentureBeat, the cash injection came from a variety of individual investors, and will see the Texas-based studio develop titles for more traditional platforms after getting its start in VR.
Playful chief exec Pau Bettner explained the studio wants to work on projects that are as engaging to watch as they are to play, and suggested the rise of services like Twitch and streamers that command huge followings is the “birth of a brand new platform” for games.
“We have turned to a new frontier that we are very excited about,” he said. “It differs from anything we worked on before. We’re working on a large project. It’s about the fact that video games are becoming a spectator sport.”
He also claimed that more people are currently watching Playful’s games than actually playing them, meaning the studio has to figure out a way to tap into that audience.
“When I see somebody sitting back on their couch, not touching a controller, but watching someone else play a game, I don’t see somebody who’s going to become one of my customers in the future, I see somebody who is already a customer of that, of that experience,” he continued.
“Those folks, whether they install the game or not, are our customers and our players from the minute that they tuned in to start enjoying. It’s like the beginning of the iPhone. It’s a second wave, a second generation of products. We began working on this two years ago.”
Although Playful might have moved away from VR for now, Bettner hasn’t ruled out a return to the platform, but claims the market needs to become more established before that happens.