Mumbai: Firescore Interactive, a leading game development studio, has raised USD $500,000 funding led by CrazyLabs. The funds will be utilized to launch the first-ever Hyper Casual Gaming Hub for game studios around the world in India. CrazyLabs has created the funding program for studios looking to build hyper-casual games exclusively, and are offering an additional profit share for games developed within the program.
The innovative games accelerator, branded as the CrazyHub, is located in Mumbai and will allow a hands-on guidance for local developers and studios, along with financial support, advisory meetings and mentorship sessions. The CrazyHub will be operated by Firescore Interactive and, together with CrazyLabs, offer game studios everything they need in order to create the next chart-topping Hyper Casual mobile game. Given the current scenario, they can join the new hub, even if the team is still confined to working from home due to the COVID-19 situation in India.
Firescore Interactive’s team and office space is going to expand in order to accommodate the needs of the new gaming hub and manage the entire local activity. Well-known game studios in India, Optimum Games (founded by Aditya Natarajan) and UnderDogs Studios (founded by Vaibhav Chavan) have already confirmed their participation in the program and more studios will be announced soon. Many Indian game studios go through the same struggle. They have the talent, the skills and the motivation – but they always lack the funds to keep their studios alive. A lot of this is because studios spend long periods of time building single products. Eventually, they resort to servicing clients to either finish or promote these products.
“This was also the story of Firescore before we began working with CrazyLabs.” says Karan Khairajani, co-founder of Firescore Interactive. “We had spent almost a year building a single product, and we were running out of money. We came across an article which outlined how CrazyLabs was looking to invest more into developers focusing on hyper-casual games. After a conversation with their publishing head, Moria Goldstein, who identified our potential, we began working exclusively with CrazyLabs. A couple of months later, we had a worldwide super-hit called Soap Cutting topping the charts on Christmas Day.”
“Successful hyper-casual games can net game studios a significant amount of money”, says Surojit Roy, also co-founder at Firescore Interactive. “The beauty of the process is that we never spend much time working on games that won’t be successful. Working fast and testing ideas early in the development process is critical to pursuing a hyper-casual strategy, and we’re looking to support studios who can fit into this fast-paced environment.”
“Firescore Interactive’s entrepreneurial spirit was just what we were looking for when we planned our first CrazyHub”, said Guy Tomer, CrazyLabs COO. “Our publishing team is always open for new ideas and partners, but not all partners can carry the weight of a gaming hub. We have no doubt that Mumbai is the perfect location to launch our first CrazyHub, and that Firescore Interactive are the perfect partners for our mission: to find the next hit game.”
CrazyLabs and Firescore Interactive’s partnership began when the teams worked together to create the Christmas #1 hit game Soap Cutting. Soap Cutting was an instant triumph, and the game has already surpassed 50M downloads.
Soap Cutting’s swift development time from ideation to global launch goes to show how quick the Hyper Casual production process is. How to master this speedy production process is part of the Hub’s official training program.
Further to their game’s success, the companies decided to launch a new entrepreneurial initiative in Firescore Interactive’s hometown and open the 1st ever CrazyHub in the world. More such Hubs are underway and will be announced soon.
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