Justin Kalaskey’s Post

#GamingIndustry #GameDevelopment #Startups #Innovation #GamingCommunity Hey there, fellow innovators! 🎮✨ I'm really curious about what you're all working on in the gaming industry. Are you involved in creating games or perhaps developing services or software that supports gamers in some way? As someone who's recently stepped into building my own product, I’d love to tap into the collective creativity and expertise in our community. It doesn't solely have to be about game studios—you might be exploring tools, platforms, or solutions that can enhance the gaming experience. Here are a few things I’d love to discuss: What issues are you trying to solve? Often, challenges in gaming can stem from things like poor user engagement, lack of community support, or inefficient game matchmaking. How do these pain points affect users? When players encounter frustrating bugs, long wait times, or unresponsive support, it can turn them off from a game or service entirely. User experience ... What Innovative Gaming Projects Are Founders Working On Today? Answers: https://lnkd.in/gjb_PTbe

What game best models founding a video game studio startup? Industry folks and gamers love to framework IRL situations in analogues to video games, and building a team to make a video game should be no exception. I think the best analogue for our studio has been the Mount and Blade franchise. I think many folks would choose a simulation / strategy / sandbox game to model a startup as, and Bannerlord is the natural choice for me. The co-founders serve as the player character. Through recruitment of companions, the player character complements strengths and supplements weaknesses to round out their core band. Through battle & quests, the core band builds renown, receives investment, and builds its warband. The player character seeks to establish a fledging kingdom in a sea of competitors - to find their product-market fit. Through stratagems and skillful execution, the kingdom is established, manages resources, fends off incursions, and seeks to expand its position in an ever-changing emergent environment. You can't "beat" Bannerlord alone (unless you use console cheats, which we have yet to unlock IRL). You depend upon companions, alliances, relationships with other lords, etc. to expand your position. To declare oneself a claimant too early aggros most of the map against you and is a speedrun to losing all your fiefdoms. A startup is also a web of companions, alliances, competitors, etc., and so rarely can a startup succeed by charging headfirst into the fray. Cultivating and building support - not just acquiring Denars ($$$) - is key to building a sustainable enterprise. For example, today one of our supporters told me I can use his apartment in Shanghai, for which I am both personally and startup-wise profoundly grateful for. This decreases our burn for the duration by 4%. This gentleman works in the healthcare industry, and so in the context of Mount and Blade, having him as a Companion in our Party improves our Wound Treatment stat, and so our troops recover from wounds 4% faster, which leads to more Denars / $$$. If someone could input a CTRL+X function in real life so I could print money and EXP, that would be great. I hope TaleWorlds Entertainment gets on that pronto. #studiolife #startuplife #startup #gamedev #gamingindustry #gaming #strategy #shanghai

#GamingIndustry #GameDevelopment #Startups #Innovation #GamingCommunity Hey there, fellow innovators! 🎮✨ I'm really curious about what you're all working on in the gaming industry. Are you involved in creating games or perhaps developing services or software that supports gamers in some way? As someone who's recently stepped into building my own product, I’d love to tap into the collective creativity and expertise in our community. It doesn't solely have to be about game studios—you might be exploring tools, platforms, or solutions that can enhance the gaming experience. Here are a few things I’d love to discuss: What issues are you trying to solve? Often, challenges in gaming can stem from things like poor user engagement, lack of community support, or inefficient game matchmaking. How do these pain points affect users? When players encounter frustrating bugs, long wait times, or unresponsive support, it can turn them off from a game or service entirely. User experience ... What Innovative Gaming Projects Are Founders Working On Today? Answers: https://lnkd.in/ekUV6Rq9

#GamingIndustry #GameDevelopment #Startups #Innovation #GamingCommunity Hey there, fellow innovators! 🎮✨ I'm really curious about what you're all working on in the gaming industry. Are you involved in creating games or perhaps developing services or software that supports gamers in some way? As someone who's recently stepped into building my own product, I’d love to tap into the collective creativity and expertise in our community. It doesn't solely have to be about game studios—you might be exploring tools, platforms, or solutions that can enhance the gaming experience. Here are a few things I’d love to discuss: What issues are you trying to solve? Often, challenges in gaming can stem from things like poor user engagement, lack of community support, or inefficient game matchmaking. How do these pain points affect users? When players encounter frustrating bugs, long wait times, or unresponsive support, it can turn them off from a game or service entirely. User experience ... What Innovative Gaming Projects Are Founders Working On Today? Answers: https://lnkd.in/gtXH5Q5d

#GamingIndustry #GameDevelopment #Startups #Innovation #GamingCommunity Hey there, fellow innovators! 🎮✨ I'm really curious about what you're all working on in the gaming industry. Are you involved in creating games or perhaps developing services or software that supports gamers in some way? As someone who's recently stepped into building my own product, I’d love to tap into the collective creativity and expertise in our community. It doesn't solely have to be about game studios—you might be exploring tools, platforms, or solutions that can enhance the gaming experience. Here are a few things I’d love to discuss: What issues are you trying to solve? Often, challenges in gaming can stem from things like poor user engagement, lack of community support, or inefficient game matchmaking. How do these pain points affect users? When players encounter frustrating bugs, long wait times, or unresponsive support, it can turn them off from a game or service entirely. User experience ... What Innovative Gaming Projects Are Founders Working On Today? Answers: https://lnkd.in/gq5PituH

#GamingIndustry #GameDevelopment #Startups #Innovation #GamingCommunity Hey there, fellow innovators! 🎮✨ I'm really curious about what you're all working on in the gaming industry. Are you involved in creating games or perhaps developing services or software that supports gamers in some way? As someone who's recently stepped into building my own product, I’d love to tap into the collective creativity and expertise in our community. It doesn't solely have to be about game studios—you might be exploring tools, platforms, or solutions that can enhance the gaming experience. Here are a few things I’d love to discuss: What issues are you trying to solve? Often, challenges in gaming can stem from things like poor user engagement, lack of community support, or inefficient game matchmaking. How do these pain points affect users? When players encounter frustrating bugs, long wait times, or unresponsive support, it can turn them off from a game or service entirely. User experience ... What Innovative Gaming Projects Are Founders Working On Today? Answers: https://lnkd.in/gvvavwRj

The gaming industry has seen a surge of innovation in recent years, with new technologies and creative approaches to game design opening up endless possibilities. 🎮 🕹 Our team has compiled a list of the top gaming startups to watch in the coming years. Whether you're a gamer looking for the next big thing, an industry professional seeking to stay ahead of the curve, or an investor searching for the most promising opportunities, this article is for you: https://lnkd.in/gq6sNQtR Luma AI Voodoo 1047 Games Overwolf Medal.tv Proof of Play Inworld AI MyDearest株式会社 Overplay #gaming #innovation #gamingcommunity #tech #entrepreneurship #gamingstartups #videogames #virtualreality #gamers #software

What do you think unites the developers of Black Myth Wukong, Lies of P, Genshin Impact, and Stellar Blade? Some might quickly exclaim, "Well, it's obvious! They all released amazing and successful projects on PC!" And you’d be partly right—these projects are indeed very impressive. But this is a superficial view that doesn’t capture the full reality of the situation. The most important thing that unites these projects is that the teams behind them were previously focused on mobile projects, and some didn’t even have the kind of remarkable experience that many of the titans and leaders of the AAA games industry possess. But look at the results: it's no longer clear who the leader is—yesterday's unknowns or the ones who have been beating their chests all this time but have ultimately released nothing of note, despite having more than enough resources. It's something to think about. What do you think? 😉 #hiring #product #it #UnrealEngine #mobilegame #gamedev #videogame #analytics #games #PGGS #gamedevelopment #EpicGames #Microsoft #pixelgamegodstudio #venturecapital #Startup #innovation #investing #Startups #entrepreneurship

A16Z GAMES SPEEDRUN #3 ‼️Applications are now OPEN for A16Z Games 3rd Speedrun, SR003, which will run for 12 weeks starting July 29th and ending with a Demo Day during SF Tech Week in October. 💰A16Z recently concluded its 2nd edition of Speedrun, SR002, with a Demo Day during GDC that saw more than 370 investors, representing more than $500 BILLION in assets under management. 🎮 Any early-stage founder that is building at the intersection of Tech x Games is eligible to apply - live ops tools, AI agents, 3D retopology, cozy games, and gamified apps. 👨💼 Joshua Lu investing partner for A16z Games: “The program not only provides capital support, but also a team of operators and partners who have worked across the games industry and can equip them with the knowledge that help them go from zero to launch.” ✍️ Apply now for for a chance at $750,000 - read more about the application process on our website here: https://lnkd.in/eChmfbyX

Excited to announce that BITKRAFT Ventures is leading Darkbright Studios $6M Seed Round alongside a roster of marquee partners to build SmolBound, the next generation cozy life sim! Short-form thoughts on BITKRAFT's excitement around the trinity of: i) Token-bootstrapped networks, unlocking ii) New paradigms in gaming UGC, in turn iii) Disrupting the massive TAM of Cozy games -------------------- Networks are killer use-cases of the Internet which accrue the greatest enterprise value: Think Facebook, TikTok, Instagram Building networks are tough: Roblox was founded in 2004 but only IPO-ed in 2021 We believe this paradigm is unlikely to hold true over the next decade as next-gen UGC platforms can and should overcome cold start problems via clever deployment of token incentives, not only to bootstrap initial user liquidity, but also drive greater creative agency, ownership, and ultimately value creation over the long term We saw this come alive during DarkBright’s pitch: Instead of using tokens to provide pure financial utility to DeFi-natives a la DeFi protocols, SmolBound will, inter alia, leverage tokens to provide gameplay utility to gaming-natives and engender what we call content network effects. Gamers will be able to use tokens to vote for the user-generated games they enjoy, this drives natural selection of high-PMF content to be produced, which in turn attracts more users in a virtuous manner This heroic endeavor requires the toughest of founders, and to that end it has been an absolute joy getting to know PurpleSnow and Spooky, whose blend of grit, intellectual horsepower, and creative prowess position them strongly to embark one of the toughest consumer startup journeys one may choose to embark on -------------------- Leveraging web3 to unlock a UGC ecosystem atop a massive market opportunity that is the Cozy Life Sim genre led by upstart mavericks constitutes a super rare Venn diagram of investment foci that we are fundamentally excited about BITKRAFT Ventures is excited to be Darkbright Studios partners from Day 1, and are heartened to be in the company of all-star investors who will help us make this dream come true Let's get SMOL and COZY together!