Edge January 2022

“Like an alien race coming to terraform the Earth and turn us into meat batteries, first, they came for our friends and families, then our schools, then our town halls and libraries and marketplaces, and then our politicians.” A lot has been said about Facebook’s plans for an allencompassing metaverse, but not much stands up to this from Internet culture writer Ryan Broderick. “They saved and studied billions of our faces and experimented on our children and our parents and figured out exactly how deeply they could worm their way into how we interact with each other. Now that they’ve reached the limitations of both our current technology and our laws, they decided it was time for an upgrade.” Because of the many controversies on its track record, we cannot…

“Like an alien race coming to terraform the Earth and turn us into meat batteries, first, they came for our friends and families, then our schools, then our town halls and libraries and marketplaces, and then our politicians.” A lot has been said about Facebook’s plans for an allencompassing metaverse, but not much stands up to this from Internet culture writer Ryan Broderick. “They saved and studied billions of our faces and experimented on our children and our parents and figured out exactly how deeply they could worm their way into how we interact with each other. Now that they’ve reached the limitations of both our current technology and our laws, they decided it was time for an upgrade.” Because of the many controversies on its track record, we cannot expect…

Change is afoot in the world of videogame publishing. Where once the average player might have been able to name – and count on one hand – the companies that brought to market most of the big titles they purchased, today the picture is much more complicated. Selfpublishing is on the rise, of course, as is the indie dev-pub model. But we’re also becoming aware of ever more sleeping giants: companies that have, quietly, without many of us noticing, become forces to rival the biggest publishers and platform holders. Look at Devolver Digital, which, quite apart from having one of the year’s best runs of releases, from Death’s Door to Inscryption, has just become a publicly traded company, with an initial valuation of almost $1bn. Or at Embracer Group which,…

Change is afoot in the world of videogame publishing. Where once the average player might have been able to name – and count on one hand – the companies that brought to market most of the big titles they purchased, today the picture is much more complicated. Selfpublishing is on the rise, of course, as is the indie dev-pub model. But we’re also becoming aware of ever more sleeping giants: companies that have, quietly, without many of us noticing, become forces to rival the biggest publishers and platform holders. Look at Devolver Digital, which, quite apart from having one of the year’s best runs of releases, from Death’s Door to Inscryption, has just become a publicly traded company, with an initial valuation of almost $1bn. Or at Embracer Group which, despite…

Through Robot Teddy, Thunderful Investment is bankrolling two funds. The first is focused on VR. “[Robot Teddy founder] Callum [Underwood] has a lot of experience in that space, having worked at Oculus,” Simonetta says. “I was a PSVR project lead in Europe for a period of time, evangelising PSVR to the development community. So there is the shared belief that VR can play an important part in our industry.” The second focuses on backing early prototypes. “Too often, for publishers, investors and platforms, it’s easier to invest in something that is farther along the line, and so developers struggle to get a prototype funded.” The idea, it seems, is to get in on the ground floor of the next big thing – though Simonetta stresses that, while publishing with Thunderful…