Improbable’s SpatialOS is moving on up in the world: The company announced this week that China’s NetEase has invested $50 million to acquire a “small equity stake to act as strategic investment” in the company. And that’s not just casual money; NetEase is apparently planning on developing multiple games using SpatialOS, the first of which is expected to be revealed later in 2018.
“We are recruiting and establishing a presence able to support game developers of all types within China who wish to use SpatialOS, and actively seeking other ÂÂpartners in Asia,” Improbable says. “The investment will increase our ability to help game makers in China and beyond to build previously impossible games, by helping game makers to benefit from a neutral, openly available technology platform supporting the next generation of online gaming.”
SpatialOS has been described as a “distributed computing platform for building large virtual worlds for gaming” – specially for online games and MMORPGs. “I want the industry to believe in online games again,” CEO Herman Narula said back in 2017. “We went through a bit of a nuclear winter, with MMOs in particular, and part of that was technological, part of that was gameplay and part of that was consumer expectation. But now the time is right to revitalise the notion of worlds where actions can be meaningful and where we can create these experiences that we’ve dreamed of. I am hoping that with us having this cash and having this stability, it’s going to make people excited about investing in that.”
The platform is being used widely by a number of emerging games, from Worlds Adrift and Seed to Mavericks and the newly Kickstarted Fractured; notably, Jagex is using the platform for a new game, while Chronicles of Elyria dropped it during development. Last year, Improbable picked up a half-billion dollar investment from Japan’s SoftBank, which at the time represented less than half the value of the company.
More coverage of Improbable and games using SpatialOS:
Chinese MMO company NetEase invests $50M into SpatialOS MMO platform
E3 2018: Bill Roper on gaming’s smoke and mirrors, Worlds Adrift, and building on SpatialOS
GDC 2018: Exploring SpatialOS with Improbable CCO Bill Roper
Chronicles of Elyria is dropping virtual world platform SpatialOS
SpatialOS MMORPG sandbox Fractured has just gone live with its $116K Kickstarter
Forsaken Legends is ‘coming back to life’ as an MMORPG, looks at SpatialOS
SpatialOS ‘tactical shooter MMO’ Project X will show off gameplay footage in February
MMO veteran Bill Roper joins SpatialOS dev Improbable
RuneScape’s Jagex is the latest MMORPG studio to employ Improbable’s SpatialOS
Identity announces SpatialOS integration, delays town square module
Social VR MMO MetaWorld will use SpatialOS just like Chronicles of Elyria
Colony simulation MMO Seed blasts you into space in its brand-new pre-alpha teaser
Interview: Worlds Adrift’s Bossa Studios on giving, griefing, and gittin’ gud
E3 2018: Hands-on with Mavericks, the MMO battle royale hybrid
First impressions of Worlds Adrift: Innovation, Zelda, open-world PvP, and that sinking feeling
Improbable’s plan for rescuing the MMO genre from ‘nuclear winter’ involves a crapton of money
Virtual world creator Improbable receives $502M investment from SoftBank
