Trion World Network, an online games developer, announced today that it raised $70 million in Series C funding. Peacock Equity, the joint venture between GE Commercial Finance’s Media, Communications & Entertainment business and NBC Universal, which was a B-round investor, was one of the investors in the company’s C round, but it was led by “a large global financial institution” and Act II Capital.
The fact that Trion was able to raise $70 million speaks to the popularity of gaming, which is quickly becoming a real competitor to Hollywood. But what sets Trion apart is that all its games are server-based. In other words, all the gameplay, characters, and interactions between players are kept on Trion’s servers, which allows the company to remodel less-played portions of the game or add more content on-the-fly. Consumers who want to play the company’s games need a few simple downloads to get the company’s games running on their computers.
Speaking of games, Trion is currently working on its first MMORPG with NBC Universal’s Sci-Fi channel. It’s also developing a fantasy MMORPG with well-known game designer, Jon Van Caneghem. The company didn’t offer any more details about storyline or availability, but if investors are willing to spend $70 million on the hopeful success of two games, they obviously think Trion is on to something with the titles.
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Holy crap! That is insane! Looks like Gaming is definitely a market worth investing in.
nothing on the website for gamers yet. a video sample would be better than nothing. where is there beacon domain gonna be? tryonworld.com is limping.
PlayLocator.com
Holy crap is right… Let’s see what these guys do with this money.
Raza Imam
http://SoftwareSweatshop.com
I do not understand what a gaming company can do with that much money.
I’ve worked on what could be considered a AAA game title - funded by one of the top publishers, with a 30 person full time staff plus numerous contractors and top voice talent, along with the publisher’s full time QA staff. The budget as *A FEW* million dollars. Not ten. Not twenty. I don’t know the exact number, but it was something between two and five. Million dollars. With a development cycle of 18 months.
So what would 70 million get you? How is that even justified? Or is it just for acquisitions and a rainy day fund?
Aaron, a 30 person full-time staff is pretty small for a AAA game. The big titles these days in both the online space (WoW, Warhammer, etc) and offline space (GTA IV, Mass Effect, etc) have budgets in the 10s of millions, not a few million dollars.
What he said. Most triple-A console titles now have budgets on the order of $50MM and teams in the hundreds. Big MMOs are vastly more expensive than that to develop and take armies of people and infrastructure to support. $70mm is a drop in the bucket for a company that will be publishing multiple MMOs.
That being said, there are lots of great indie games getting made now with really small teams, and there is a new generation of “casual MMOs” coming on that will be done on budgets of >$10MM with teams of >50 people.
Good for Trion!
wow wow lotta money
they better deliver the next wow
I’d love to see a real game developer work with schools to produce a high quality educational game. So many games that try to be challenging and fun but educational at the same time turn out to be lousy in all ways. That said, there is a great deal that pre-teens and teens can learn from the common games.
http://www.pass-ed.com/blogger.html
Wow, thats a whole lot of money. Are they developing browser based games? Or are they chunky installs like World of Warcraft?
http://thinkingworlds.wordpres.....ous-games/