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Owlcat Games has become an independent studio, raising $1 million (£777K) in capital from GEM Capital and an undisclosed amount from My.Games’ investment arm, Mail Ru Games Ventures. The funding will be used to develop a new, announced gaming project.
The Pathfinder Kingmaker developer – which was established in 2016 in Moscow – says it was “founded by game industry veterans” and has built “a strong reputation in the industry as a developer of role-playing games inspired by classic isometric RPGs”. The studio’s first title, Pathfinder: Kingmaker, was released in September 2018.
“As a newly independent studio, we have already moved to the new headquarters, where we are actively making ourselves a new home right now,” the studio explained by way of a blog post in October. “The move was not easy for us – we needed to carefully pack and transfer the countless boxes with small assets, shaman tambourines, all the dialogues, the bestiary and all the miniatures from the personal desks. Amiri’s sword alone required an individual van! But we made it!”
“We believe in the huge potential of the Eastern European PC/console game development market, and we are proud to be working with Owlcat Games, backing the latest generation of up-and-coming gaming studios in the CIS,” said Roman Gurskiy, head of gaming investments at GEM Capital.
“We have already moved to our new headquarters, where we are actively making ourselves a new home right now. There’s a lot of work to be done but we’re confident we can pull it off with support from MRGV and GEM Capital,” added Oleg Shpilchevsky, studio head at Owlcat Games.
My.Games recently launched My.Studio, a new investment initiative to “find and fund a new AAA partner developer”. The project, now closed, hoped to fund the development of a triple-A shooter, and saw the company pledge to “work closely with the winner on development, customer support, legal and studio operations”.
My.Games is a new international gaming brand that will develop, publish and fund new games, including upcoming titles Lost Ark, Conqueror’s Blade and a mobile release of Warface. All of the company’s existing gaming projects published under the Mail.ru Group brand in Russia – or My.com internationally – will “now be united under My.Games”.
