Today on Equity, Rebecca Beran talks about Gamebeast, a startup that gives Roblox developers tools like A/B testing and LiveOps that let them change their games without releasing new versions or disrupting user interaction. We spoke with Xander Brumbaugh, the 22-year-old founder of . A game in progress.
Gamebeast recently raised a $3.7 million pre-seed round led by J2 Ventures with participation from a16z's Speedrun accelerator, which Brumbaugh graduated from in March. From consulting for entertainment studios like Netflix and writing a best-selling book about Roblox development to speaking with investors, Brumbaugh says the future of video games is in user-generated content (UGC) .
The two discussed the growing popularity of UGC games, an area that investors are increasingly looking at as a driver of growth in the video game industry. Brumbaugh pointed out that the majority of children under 16 begged their parents for cryptocurrencies like Robux from Roblox and V-Bucks from Fortnite during last year's holiday season.
Most of the games, experiences, and virtual worlds on Roblox are user-created, and that's by design. Best known for its player vs. player battle royale game, Fortnite also has a sandbox mode that allows players to build and create their own worlds and experiences. Creative mode is quickly becoming popular.
“These platforms make it very easy to create content from an early age,” Brumbaugh says. “Starting when I was 12 years old, I taught myself how to program in Lua and learned how to use the Roblox engine. I think it's really exciting to be able to turn it into a hobby, or in many cases a job.”
During the show, Brumbaugh also shared his thoughts on how generative AI is changing the gaming environment.
“Especially in the creative space, you can't really discuss AI without an immediate and sudden negative reaction from a lot of people in the community,” Brumbaugh said. “But ultimately, as models improve, I think the best thing is always to integrate these kinds of models into workflows to make things easier for developers.”
Brumbaugh was able to get funding for his startup not only because investors see value in enabling UGC game development. J2 Ventures' paper focused on dual-use technology, and Gamebeast was able to demonstrate how the technology could be applied to both commercial and defense. And in fact, there is a tendency for companies to target their sweet military funds in order to survive their businesses.
Listen and enjoy as we have lots of further insights and investor insights into the future of the video game market.
Equity is TechCrunch's flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo and posted every Wednesday and Friday.
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