Virtual reality game startup Playful Corp. has raised $25 million Series B in a round from a number of undisclosed investors.
Founded in 2012 by “Words with Friends” co-creator Paul Bettner, Playful has as its primary aim to develop games for the Facebook, Inc. owned Oculus Rift.
The company has a long (as much as it can be) history with Oculus Rift going back to its early days, including Bettner being a major investor in Oculus back when it raised $2.4 million on Kickstarter prior to being acquired by Facebook.
Virtual reality game design spun out of Bettner’s interest in the Oculus Rift platform, The Wall Street Journal reports, eventually becoming Playful today.
So far the company has designed some 40 games for Oculus’s virtual reality headset, but it’s due to make it big when the actual retail version of the headset eventually goes on sale sometime in 2016 by offering a first major release for it, a game by the name of Lucky’s Tale.
The game is said to be unique in that it doesn’t deliver a first person view within the 3D virtual reality environment, but instead provides players a god-like view that allows oversight of Lucky as Lucky as “he runs, jumps, climbs and spins his way through bright, colorful worlds filled with thrilling challenges, wacky creatures, and all the shiny things a little fox could ever want!”
Along with pure game development, Playful is developing Creativerse, a next-generation sandbox adventure that currently is available via early access on Steam.
“We’re inspired by Snow White, by Toy Story, by Mario,” Bettner said in a statement. “These beloved stories and characters share something in common: technology made them possible. Motion pictures, CG characters, interactive video games — these advances enabled fundamentally new levels of empathy and audience connection. We founded Playful to carry on this tradition.”
Gold in them hills
Although we won’t see whether the second wave of virtual reality headsets will be a success or nothing more than a fad when they start going on sale in 2016, there’s a serious amount of money going into space as investors consider that there is potential of proverbial “gold in them hills,” in that if it does take off VR could be the next great money maker.
Most of that attention previously has been with investments or acquisitions within VR device makers, but it makes sense that as they come close to market software startups that are looking to provide the content that will drive the space are getting a serious look at in terms of investment as well.
Including the new round, Playful has raised $33 million to-date.
The company said it would use the new round to “accelerate the development of original IP for cutting edge platforms.”