Kek Entertainment secures $8M to drive cross-platform gaming

Kek Leisure has raised $8 million in funding to foster cross-platform gaming experiences all through mobile devices, consoles and PCs.

This financial infusion will fuel the occasion of their flagship title, an unannounced vehicle shooter sport merging mobile and PC/Console gamers onto a unified platform.

The startup is headed by a workers from Pixonics who helped create the Battle Robots mech stopping sport on mobile devices. Now they’re making one factor mannequin new inside the mecha home.

Korea Funding Companions, a South Korean gaming enterprise capital fund, led the spherical. Totally different merchants included Woori Know-how Funding Co., Kona Enterprise Companions, and KEK’s pre-seed merchants — The Video video games Fund and Play Ventures.

Michael Okay. Lee, director at Korea Funding Companions, in a press launch {{that a}} trustworthy number of players want additional immersive gameplay and have to play with their buddies who’re on completely different platforms.

“KEK Leisure’s imaginative and prescient aligns utterly with the altering panorama of gaming preferences. Our notion inside the potential for a well-designed cross-platform sport to resonate with quite a few gaming communities is unwavering. We’re thrilled to assist KEK on this path,” said Lee.

Origins

Georgy Egorov and Oleg Poroshin, veterans from Pixonics, started the model new agency a number of years previously. War Robots has generated $750 million in revenues and has been downloaded higher than 250 million cases as a result of it bought right here out in 2014. The commonest request was to get the game on various platforms so buddies might play collectively.

“Our thought is to make the final phrase mecha shooter experience,” Egorov said. “If we’re capable of stay away from all the errors sooner than and make it casual enough for mobile players and hardcore alike, we’re capable of protect the PC players entertained and convey inside the mobile players.”

This time, they envision one factor like a mixture of Battle Robots and World of Tanks, the place the movement is slow-paced and players may give you strategies reasonably than perception their hand-eye coordination to win video video games.

“Now now we have experience inside the fashion and we like mechas,” said Egorov, in an interview with GamesBeat. “We put effort into what we like, into the place our expertise is. We have to carry this experience for our core viewers and broaden the enchantment.”

The founders have a passion for the fashion and wanted to create one factor new, said Egorov. Now they’re set to leverage their expertise in multiplayer PvP movement to transcend the confines of mobile gaming and create a platform-agnostic psychological property.

“I’m terribly joyful that whatever the clearly troublesome funding native climate, we put collectively the appropriate setup for our journey! Now, now we have now companions in all essential areas for our enterprise: the USA, Asia, and Europe. Nonetheless, essential issue is that now we have now confidence in each of them, and from day one, we actually really feel that we share the imaginative and prescient and vibe. In any case, enterprise is about people. I think about that this partnership could be a implausible basis for setting up not solely a worthwhile sport nonetheless a model new well-known media franchise,” Egorov said.

The core philosophy of Kek Leisure services on bridging the opening between quite a few gaming devices to craft a additional linked and inclusive gaming home. Poroshin emphasised the significance of slow-paced shooters in enabling a relentless and trustworthy gaming experience all through completely completely different platforms, stressing their strategic technique and interesting gameplay.

“Why slow-paced shooters? They’re simple to get into, with controls and tempo that basically really feel glorious whether or not or not you’re having fun with on a high-end PC or tapping in your phone – the experience stays fixed and trustworthy,” said Poroshin, chief product officer. “Sluggish-paced shooters demand a strategic technique that trumps the quick reflexes normally required by their faster-paced counterparts. These video video games are deep and interesting, they normally match into your life, not the other methodology spherical.”

Kek said it had a optimistic reception from its early adopter neighborhood for the paintings mannequin and early check out the game. Now it’s engaged on launching a clean beta launch for players on mobile devices and on Steam. In various the gameplay, players have to kill a non-player boss whereas stopping an opposing workers. There’ll in all probability be three completely completely different factions. The earlier examine labored surprisingly successfully on a monitor pad.

Beforehand, the company acquired a $3 million pre-seed funding from The Video video games Fund and Play Ventures. It has 35 people now all through various nations. The headquarters is in Limassol, Cyprus and the occasion workers is in Armenia and elsewhere.

As for starting a model new agency, Egorov said it’s sometimes exhausting to implement new ideas in a legacy product. And the paintings mannequin, Egorov said, “Our viewers thinks actual wanting pictures are most suitable choice for them. They’re important individuals who want precise navy experience, with sci fi on the an identical time. We don’t have to be bounded by modern warfare.”