Raph Koster’s Playable Worlds is inching a little closer to a playable world thanks to another cash infusion.
GIbiz reports that the company has raised another $25M in investment in a Series B funding round. That’s in addition to the at least $2.7M in seed funding in 2019 and a $10M Series A round reported in 2020, though Koster has clarified not all the funding has been made public. Notably, the lead investor in this round was South Korea’s Kakao Games, well known to our audience for its global MMOs.
Koster, the veteran MMO designer behind Star Wars Galaxies and Ultima Online, has previously characterized his project as a metaverse platform for MMORPGs, including one designed by Playable Worlds itself, though that was last September before the entire industry pivoted to chase the metaverse rabbit. Last year, Koster wrote that his team is “reasonably far along on building” a “modern sandbox MMO” on the platform; he’s said the game is “at least a few years out,” though we have yet to see a formal announcement or name.
“While we’re not yet ready to peel back the curtains, this funding round will help accelerate us closer to sharing more with prospective players, with a focus on providing a deeper and more meaningful experience consisting of rich simulations, organic content growth, and social mechanics,” Koster said in today’s press release; this particular investment is meant to bolster the team and the MMO specifically.
The Playable Worlds team has sent along two new concept pieces today:
Further reading:
• Raph Koster’s Playable Worlds teases housing, planetary governance, and languages for the unnamed MMORPG sandbox
• Raph Koster’s nine Playable Worlds teasers (so far) hint at the MMORPG sandbox you always wanted
• Raph Koster’s Playable Worlds is counting down to… something
• Raph Koster’s Playable Worlds enlists ‘AI-powered’ character platform Popul8
• Raph Koster has been warning about the death of games innovation longer than most MMOs have been alive
• Raph Koster predicts the future of the metaverse is a ‘virtual Machu Picchu’ – that you can leave
• MMO dev Raph Koster disambiguates sandboxes, themeparks, simulation, and stagecraft
• Raph Koster talks about the ‘mission’ of Playable Worlds, his vision of the metaverse, and player ownership
• Crowfall’s Gordon Walton joins Raph Koster’s Playable Worlds MMO and platform
• Playable Worlds’ Raph Koster makes bold promises about his studio’s developing sandbox MMORPG
• Raph Koster’s Playable Worlds scored $25M in investment for his ‘modern sandbox MMO’
• Raph Koster talks metaverse creation and learning lessons from past game design mistakes
• Raph Koster and Playable Worlds won’t announce their MMO until next year
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• Raph Koster’s ‘modern sandbox MMO’ is teasing concept art for the first time
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• Playable Worlds’ Raph Koster on the ‘stuff’ inside your virtual worlds
• Playable Worlds’ Raph Koster is not gonna stop saying the word metaverse
• Raph Koster says nobody wants a metaverse with ‘Fairyland butting up against World War II’
• Playable Worlds’ Raph Koster on why avatars traipsing across the metaverse are a major tech challenge
• Playable Worlds’ lead QA engineer on the industry’s problematic ‘godlike status’ for devs
• Raph Koster’s plan is to build the metaverse tech, build a sandbox MMORPG on it, then open it all up
• Massively OP Podcast Episode 338: No power in the multiverse can stop Raph Koster
• So it turns out Raph Koster is building the metaverse and a sandbox MMO on top of it
• Playable Worlds’ Raph Koster has all but said he’s building a metaverse
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• Playable Worlds’ Raph Koster on the player-driven economies at the heart of virtual worlds
• Playable Worlds’ hiring page suggests Raph Koster’s upcoming MMO is a AAA sandbox
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• The folks working on Raph Koster’s Playable Worlds MMO provide clues into what it’ll be
• Raph Koster argues MMOs are much more than ‘a series of kill and fetch quest pellets’
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• Raph Koster touches on the technology and community that will bring Playable Worlds’ MMO to life
• Raph Koster’s Playable Worlds studio raises an additional $10 million in funding
• Raph Koster will give more insight on Playable Worlds’ in-development MMO next year
• Raph Koster’s dev studio Playable Worlds opens a new website and begins the search for game devs
• Raph Koster’s new MMORPG will reward social gameplay, not just hack-n-slash
• Raph Koster’s new MMORPG will be more than ‘just hack and slashing your way through levels’
• Raph Koster is making a new MMO and just raised $2.7M in seed funding to do it
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