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Infinite World he takes Web3 and the metaverse seriously, so he acquired the game studio Super Bit Machine for an undisclosed price.
The goal is to use the independent game studio, the maker of Armajet, to create games that will drive consumer engagement for InfiniteWorld, an infrastructure company that wants to enable brands to create, monetize and interact with digital content.
“We are bringing communities from Web2 to Web3 and our belief is that gaming is the key to that,” said Brad Allen, CEO of InfiniteWorld, in an interview with GamesBeat. “It’s about bringing to a higher level of engagement and experiences, which is what Web3 and the metaverse are about. Super Bit Machine has scalable technology around the gaming and gaming infrastructure that allows us to be really quickly on the market with this next level of engagement. “
I interviewed Allen and Alexander Krivicich, founder of Super Bit Machine, who are still optimistic about Web3, gaming and the metaverse despite the difficult economy.
Super Bit Machine is a mobile gaming studio started by veterans who have experience running top 10 grossing multiplayer games on iOS and Android.
Web3, gaming and metaverse
The acquisition is intended to strengthen InfiniteWorld’s ability to bring metaverse and Web3 experiences to brands, with the addition of real-time multiplayer game development capabilities, which will now be part of its core offering portfolio.
The deal also signals the continued crossover between blockchain and gaming platforms and connects traditional gaming experiences currently delivered via mobile, PC and console with dynamic Web3 capabilities, Allen said.
“By partnering with veteran game developers who have made great strides in the gaming industry, we are taking a natural step towards becoming the one stop shop for brands and creators looking to enter the Web3 space,” said Allen. “We look forward to continuing to push the limits of what’s possible by amplifying the experience and vision of our new Super Bit Machine team members.”
InfiniteWorld hopes to go public through a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), which was a simplified way to go public without the regulatory process of initial public offerings. But it is becoming more difficult to do successfully due to the unstable stock market. InfiniteWorld plans to build its SPAC with Aries I Acquisition Corporation (Nasdaq: RAM) and raise $ 145 million.
“We believe gaming is critical to increasing the mass adoption of Web3,” said Alexander Krivicich, founder of Super Bit Machine. “We have been at the forefront of creating cross-platform and cross-play competitive gaming experiences and we understand that the future of these interactions will take place in the metaverse.”
Krivicich, who will become InfiniteWorld’s Chief Strategy Officer, said InfiniteWorld continues to consolidate itself as a leader in metaverse technologies by integrating gaming as a cornerstone of its internal brand and intellectual property strategy.
Krivicich started making mobile and social games in 2009 at Electronic Arts. He co-founded Buffalo Studios, creator of the hit game Bingo Blitz, in 2010. And he sold it to Caesars Interactive / Playtika.
“We built a pretty sophisticated platform architecture to support the scale of those games,” he said.
He brought that knowledge to Super Bit Machine, which he co-founded in 2015. He is still the executive chairman and the studio remains small with just eight people. InfiniteWorld has over 100 people.
Super Bit Machine focused on bringing fast-paced competitive multiplayer experiences to the mobile gaming ecosystem. It launched its flagship game Armajet on Steam and iOS as an arcade action game. It showed that the company is capable of creating a low-latency real-time multiplayer proprietary netcode and creating cross-platform games across mobile, PC, and console at scale, Krivicich said. The title debuted in beta in 2016 and launched its final version in 2019.
“It was a completely cross-platform game, as we always believed that games should be played everywhere,” he said. “We wanted our games to be accessible wherever players wanted to play them.”
The Super Bit Machine team has been working together in multiple studios for over a decade. Leaders led game studios acquired by Playtika, Caesars Interactive Entertainment, and Zynga.
“We will scale up to support InfiniteWorld’s new budding gaming division,” said Krivicich. “We will expand rapidly, but we really believe in creating products with smaller game cells.”
The company started talking to InfiniteWorld because it was working on a game with Web3 elements. The technology seemed to integrate well between the companies, and thus resulted in acquisition negotiations.
“Creating multiplayer experiences is our wheelhouse,” said Krivicich. “When we started talking to InfiniteWorld, it became clear that their vision of building and scaling this to create great gaming products, not just for some of their partners but also for internal IPs, was very exciting for us.”
Spinning
Allen joined as CEO in May and had been a senior consultant for three months earlier. InfiniteWorld was born about 18 months ago, breaking away from the holding Citizens Reserve managed by Addison McKenzie, which helped launch a blockchain technology called Suku. As non-fungible tokens (NFTs) caught fire last year, the company decided to create InfiniteWorld to seize the opportunity.
By going public, Allen hopes to distinguish InfiniteWorld from the overrated scams and blockchain startups that have given Web3 a bad reputation.
“As a publicly traded company, control over regulatory and legal issues and everything else will be high,” Allen said. “I went through the era of the doctom, social media and virtual reality. In these early days, people can’t even agree on a definition of Web3 and metaverse. So there will be all kinds of people, good and bad, some jumping on the train because of all this money being made. “
With a financial background as an investment banker and startup CEO, Allen said he believes it creates more opportunities now during the cryptocurrency winter and NFT shakeout, as it will eliminate the bad actors.
“And then we’ll go public,” he said. “This is the path to Web3.”
Allen is optimistic that good products will come to market from Apple, which has invested heavily in AR / VR with its glasses expected to arrive someday. But Allen said the company is not yet showing its internal IP cards and other projects.
Krivicich said none of the early technologies resulted in a well-designed and thought-out experience, which is why it’s important to drive with a good experience and high-quality play.
“We are assembling a team of creators with a lot of experience and we are coming up with the resources,” he said. “You have to build something that isn’t just reactive or based on speculation. I think it’s great that there is this correction in the market because I think it’s really starting to separate the wheat from the chaff. “
I asked Krivicich about the resistance of avid gamers to NFT games. He said there is still a lot of work to be done to invent technologies and understand the usefulness of things like NFTs.
“I think it’s been, once again, performed in ways that have so far been very damaging to players in general,” he said. “We still have a long way to go. We are building first with experience “.
I’ve noticed that I think this recession means that this shift to quality will have to happen first and Krivicich agrees.
He said the company will focus on Web3 games that aren’t exclusive or nightmare complicated. Instead, Krivicich wants to focus on games that are accessible and egalitarian.
“We want this to be fun for all players and we want to use it as an opportunity to scale in Web3,” he said.
Content is king
The combined companies are optimistic about how they will come out at the right time.
“We want to be the first to commercialize a number of initiatives, including games,” said Allen. “Content is still king and with the metaverse and Web3 you have to have interesting content.”
He said the products are targeting the new generation, Gen Z, who are more comfortable with technology, creators, and digital assets. He noted that the company has made many deals with partners from Chibi to McLaren.
“There are a lot of new technologies coming up,” he said. “Then there is the ownership part of the blockchain itself. All these pieces are coming together. It is a fascinating period ”.
Recession is also a time when the company can operate more economically and take its time to build something appropriate.
“We are thrilled to do it,” said Krivicich. “I’ve never seen anything bigger than this frontier. And after going through the transition from early PCs and consoles to mobile games, I think gamers have a lot of stamina at first. But now we are seeing games like Diablo Immortal coming out that are simply amazing. And so we’re in another one of those inflection points. I think it’s very interesting to see where this will lead us with player ownership of digital assets. “
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