A new investment funding round for Mainframe Industries has brought its total raised for its cloud-based MMORPG to €20.3 million (about $22 million).
The newly raised money (as reported by GamesIndustry.biz) is going towards development of the "cloud native MMO". Recent rumors were followed by apparent confirmations that the game has a working title and a publishing agreement under Microsoft. None of these details have been confirmed by Mainframe (or Microsoft, for that matter), but those rumors and the new funding seem to point in a positive direction.
On the Mainframe site, their listed aim says that the studio is developing "a persistent living world that people will call their home for years and hopefully decades" while noting that the game will be playable via PC, console, and phone in some form. While cloud-based and streaming games aren't new, there's potential in setting an MMO completely in this framework. It wasn’t that long ago that even wanting cross-play was something that didn’t exist for most games. It seems that after the initial round of $8.3 million secured last year, this level of new funding means investors are sharing that positivity in Mainframe’s ongoing work.
This round of investment totaling more than double the first round of funding was led by its previous major investor, Andreessen Horowitz, with new investors coming on board, like Twitch co-founder Kevin Lin and Dreamhaven, former Blizzard president Mike Morhaime's new company.
For more on Mainframe’s company philosophy and the overall aims the company is applying to development of its cloud MMO, see the Mainframe site. The working title, Pax Dei, was seemingly confirmed last month by Chris Kohler, but there’s still no word on anything final. Almost all details are completely under wraps at this point. Are you ready for a completely cloud-native MMORPG?
