Once a gamer, always a gamer – at least that’s what we gathered from our interview with industry veteran and the cofounder of Carbonated Games, the new game studio that designs intense, competitive games for mobile devices. Carbonated Games creates experiences for gamers that have a busy life but still miss the hardcore, competitive games they used to play on console and PC, taking a modern approach to these games by designing ultra-competitive, player vs. player (PVP) games that are meant to be played on mobile devices, abandoning the need for additional hardware. Through its proprietary, live-ops platform Carbyne, Carbonated Games has built the technical infrastructure to make on the fly adjustments to gameplay and the content found in the games. The studio’s first release is MadWorld, a dystopian world where players battle against each other to assert territory control.
LA TechWatch caught up with CEO and Cofounder Travis Boatman to learn more about the inspiration behind Carbonated Games, the founding teams’ game development experience, and funding round. Prior to founding Carbonated Games in 2015, Boatman built mobile games at EA, Jamdat, and Zynga.
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
$8.5M seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz, Golden Ventures, and BITKRAFT Ventures and with angel investors and advisors such as Mark Pincus, Kent Wakeford, Shanti Bergel, and Chris Ye.
Tell us about the product or service Carbonated Games offers.
Carbonated Games is a mobile video game and entertainment studio. We founded in 2015 with proven industry veterans from Zynga, Electronic Arts, and Blizzard. Our studio is located in El Segundo, a small beach community in Los Angeles where people walk (yup, some people do walk in LA). We are making hardcore PVP games accessible to everyone on their phones, by using AI to drive moment-to-moment gameplay. Our first game is called MadWorld. The game uses AI and our live-ops tech to enable ease of play (even if one hand is holding a frosty beverage). Our team has a lot of experience running live-ops games, and we knew we needed something powerful and flexible to power these new types of experiences – so we built “Carbyne”. Carbyne is our live-ops platform with advanced tools that enable us to quickly create and modify all forms of content (including AI) and deliver it to players with no downtime.
What inspired the start of Carbonated Games?
The reason we started the company was that as folks with busy lives and living rooms, we missed playing hardcore competitive games on console and PC. We realized pretty quickly that we are not the only ones and there is a huge underserved market that continues to grow as younger core gamers age up and enter the workforce as we did.
How is Carbonated Games different?
Carbonated Games not only makes hardcore PVP games that are accessible to everyone on mobile devices, but we also create original IP and create tech that solves problems developers face when creating mobile multiplayer and shooter games.
What market is Carbonated Games targeting and how big is it?
To reach our market, we are first targeting mobile as it is the ideal platform for people with busy lives. Mobile has a massive audience with over 2.6B gamers who will account for roughly half of the total $160B industry revenue in 2020. The challenge historically has been most hardcore games are not natively designed for mobile (i.e., lots of buttons and virtual d-pads).
What is your business model?
We are not ready to discuss this at this time. We will have more details when we officially unveil our game.
How has COVID-19 impacted the business?
Our HQ is based in downtown El Segundo. We are currently working remotely, but we have always practiced a distributed development model, so we experienced little work-related setbacks due to COVID-19.
What was the funding process like?
First, we are probably a bit unusual compared to most startups, in that our team had worked together for several years as a studio before raising money. It really helped the team to learn how to work together and build a solid technical foundation. In that way, it reduced quite a bit of risk from an investor’s point of view.
Second, we had already identified a real customer need and developed a unique technical solution. We also worked hard to prove the tech worked before raising (GDC Amazon booth in 2019), so, at the time we raised, we had the confidence that we could deliver on our technical innovations.
What are the biggest challenges that you faced while raising capital?
This was my first-time raising capital, so I’m no expert. Still, there were a few things we did to overcome typical challenges when raising.
I think having an experienced team that has worked together is important. Second, having a clear thesis and a well-articulated path to deliver was a discussion point in every meeting.
It is also worth mentioning that making games is very difficult, so being able to reduce risk where appropriate is key. In that way, investors feel good knowing their dollars flow to the thesis – not just setting up a company.
What factors about your business led your investors to write the check?
It was a combination of our new IP/game, the ground-breaking tech behind it, our experienced leadership, and the entire team working on the game. From a tech perspective, we’re solving a major mobile video game development challenge by designing a hardcore mobile experience that uses AI and our live-ops tech to enable ease of play.
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
We’re far enough along that we’re opening up the game to players that represent our target demographic. We’re starting to iterate on game features and content based on real-player feedback. Granted, it took us a bit to get here, but it is really fun seeing players engaging with the product.
What advice can you offer companies in Los Angeles that do not have a fresh injection of capital in the bank?
It is really hard to offer general advice. The mobile games business is so vast and diverse that each startup really can have a unique path to success. In fact, I think it is safe to say venture folks are looking for unique and diverse solutions!
That said, I do think now is a really good time to be in games. If these hard times taught us anything, it is that digital entertainment, especially games – is a very resilient business and there is a huge demand out there for unique experiences of all kinds.
That said, I do think now is a really good time to be in games. If these hard times taught us anything, it is that digital entertainment, especially games – is a very resilient business and there is a huge demand out there for unique experiences of all kinds.
Where do you see the company going now over the near term?
We’re planning to add ~10-15 folks to the team in the near term and then based on player feedback, chase the features and content that players love, and hire more folks based on that feedback.
What is your favorite restaurant in LA?
Honestly, I am not much of a foodie, but I tend to find myself at the smaller shops Manhattan Beach and El Segundo. My favorite go-to spot is the El Tarasco walk-up food bar or Cafe Wild. Both are in Manhattan Beach two blocks from the water.
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