Andreessen Horowitz partner Joshua Lu knows that in the video game industry, there's never much rest. He experienced the heyday of mobile gaming as head of product at Zynga, where he worked on hits like Words with Friends. Then he worked on blockbuster titles like Diablo Immortal as vice president at Blizzard Entertainment. And then he learned to see games in a new dimension as director of product management at Meta, working on the VR game Horizon Worlds.
“I had to unlearn what I thought were universal truths and learn entirely new ways of doing things,” Lu told TechCrunch.
Lu now wants a front-row seat to see where video games are going. Lu, who joined the company as an investor in 2022, helped launch the company's Speedrun Accelerator, which invests $750,000 each in about 40 gaming startups twice a year. Currently a member of the company's third batch and accepting applications for the fourth batch, Lu said he has seen how AI and new distribution platforms are changing the industry.
Half of the accelerator's current batch are AI companies, doing everything from creating AI-powered stories to using AI for 3D avatars. “The last game I worked on at Blizzard took six years and a $250 million budget to ship,” he said of Diablo Immortal. “But wouldn't it be amazing if we could make a game of that quality with one-tenth of the budget and one-tenth of the people?”
Some may complain that AI is a great idea for taking away high-paid developer jobs from major game companies, but if AI also helps create more startups and make them qualitatively more competitive, that's a compelling idea.
Lu said he's seen firsthand how creative companies are getting, citing the example of startup Clementine, which participated in the speedrun. The company “released a demo where you solve puzzles while conversing with an AI and not letting it know you're human,” he said. Depending on how much of an existential threat you think AI can pose, this could be a terrifying premise or a joke.
Lu also mentioned Echo Chunk, which recently raised $1.4 million in a Speedrun-led round. Echo Chunk gained popularity for its game Echo Chess, which uses AI to instantly generate infinite levels. “This is all still very early research,” he said. “But overall we're excited about the new types of game design interactions and game dynamics that are possible thanks to AI.”
Lu also advocates for startups to develop games on Discord. Earlier this year, Discord allowed developers to create apps that could be used within the chat platform. Lu says that over his career, he's seen fewer places for people to discover games. For example, people no longer find games on their social media feeds, as they did with Farmville. “Where is the next platform where truly social games can be created and distributed?” Lu says.
Several companies participated in the accelerator build within Discord, and several more switched to building on Discord over the course of 12 weeks, Lu said. “There are more games being made than ever before, and it's hard for developers to stand out,” he said. He hopes building on Discord “helps people find content they really want to play.”