Hidden Leaf Games and VShojo introduced they are going to collaborate on an upcoming VTuber sport.
Hidden Leaf Games was working in secret as we speak. And whereas it isn’t saying its sport but, the corporate mentioned it’s going to collaborate with creators — on this case VTubers, or YouTube stars who’re animated characters (generally pushed by AI).
Bao Lam, president of Hidden Leaf Video games, talked to me in regards to the collaboration in an interview.
“We’re formally collaborating on a sport,” Lam mentioned. “We’re going to be making a sport which is able to use the VTubers within the sport. It’s going to positively go dwell someday subsequent 12 months. However proper now, we simply saying we’re working collectively.”
GB Occasion
GamesBeat Summit Name for Audio system
We’re thrilled to open our name for audio system to our flagship occasion, GamesBeat Summit 2024 hosted in Los Angeles, the place we are going to discover the theme of “Resilience and Adaption”.
Hidden Leaf Video games shared that the title will likely be a player-versus-environment co-op sport the place gamers will be capable of play as their favourite VTubers. VShojo is a expertise company for VTubers.
“Our growth workforce is happy to collaborate with the VShojo administration workforce and VTubers to create an genuine and enjoyable gameplay expertise for followers that will likely be loved by the VTubers and their viewers alike.” mentioned Lam. “The synergy of audiences between VTubers and video games is pure and we’re excited to faucet into the fandom to create new experiences for them. As a lifelong anime fan, working along with the VShojo workforce has been a enjoyable and collaborative course of.”
Hidden Leaf Video games is a venture-backed indie sport studio began in 2019 by David Li and Lam. Based by former Riot Video games and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds builders together with Steve “Guinsoo” Feak, the corporate launched its first title, Fangs, a multiplayer on-line battle area (MOBA) brawler in 2022. That sport wasn’t as profitable as the corporate had hoped, Lam mentioned. And now it’s shifting to a brand new plan.
“After we launched our final sport, we realized that one of many massive issues was that we didn’t have superb distribution channel. We didn’t discover a massive writer who may spend cash on advertising and marketing or distribution,” Lam mentioned.
Hooking up with VTubers
VShojo was launched in November of 2020 and represents VTubers, who’re content material creators who use animated avatars as their public personas on live-streaming and video platforms. The pattern originated in Japan with digital personalities and has turn out to be a rising class of influencers worldwide.
“Hidden Leaf Video games partnership with VShojo paints an unbelievable alternative for the creator house. VTubers have a lot potential to precise themselves, so with the ability to construct a sport with our creators is an thrilling alternative for VShojo and our group,” mentioned Justin Ignacio, CEO of VShojo, in an announcement.
“We needed to search out genuine, native audiences that basically love video games, and VTubers got here to thoughts for us,” mentioned Lam. “So we reached out to Justin, who was additionally a VC-backed creator. And it made sense that they needed to develop exterior of content material creation, and extra utilizing the mental property and model in new methods with the viewers.”
That they had already finished live shows and different occasions with followers who had been very in tune with the VTubers. That they had a stable base.
“Making an precise sport with them was the following pure step for us,” Lam mentioned. “There will likely be skins of them within the sport and totally different outfits and weapons which can be tied to their characters.”
Survival
Relating to the robust state of the trade, Lam mentioned, “The strongest ships are those that may survive the storm. Hopefully we are able to try this and get one thing good out.”
The corporate has adjusted its technique, because it isn’t as massive a believer in free-to-play video games anymore. However Lam is hopeful that small indie studios can nonetheless make an affect in the marketplace with revolutionary gameplay, utilizing skins for monetization.
Proper now, all the VTuber characters getting used within the sport will likely be operated by people, not AI characters.
“Nevertheless it’s one thing we are able to at all times introduce sooner or later,” Lam mentioned. “Within the dwell interactive media house, I haven’t seen AI influencers do effectively but. They’ve finished effectively in social media with AI influencers like Lil Miquela. I feel it’ll take one other couple of years earlier than we see them with genuine personalities.”
VentureBeat’s mission is to be a digital city sq. for technical decision-makers to realize data about transformative enterprise expertise and transact. Discover our Briefings.
