In May 2017, the company Improbable, founded by software entrepreneur Herman Narula (34), received an investment of $502 million. The company aimed to build the future of MMOs and MMORPGs with the technology SpatialOS. The CEO promised to create massive, fully simulated worlds. Six years later, in January 2023, little remains of that dream, says our author Schuhmann.
What did the man receive so much money for?
- Herman Narula studied computer science at Cambridge and founded the company “Improbable” after graduating in 2012: The company’s vision was to allow small teams of video game developers to simulate massive virtual worlds that would be incredibly large and complex.
- The technology SpatialOS was developed to create such huge simulations, which would then be integrated into large game engines.
- The company’s vision was so impressive that it received a staggering $502 million from a bank in a funding round in May 2017. The company was then valued at $1 billion. In 2018, the company was even valued at $2 billion during another funding round.
1 billion people in a virtual world would be a country
The man said back then: After the massive investment, Narula made grand claims. He said (via gamesindustry):
A lot of people do not want to believe that we really think that games are important. But they are incredibly important, and they are becoming increasingly important: Hypothetically, one day: If 100 million or 1 billion players enter a virtual world at the same time, it would no longer be a game; it would be a country. That would be incredibly important for the world […]
Narula wanted to lead MMOs from the “nuclear winter” into the future
This was his motivation: Narula stated that he developed the technology out of love for games. These games are not about escaping the real world but becoming more empathetic and clever by visiting virtual worlds. Visiting a virtual world is like a journey, and we know that travel educates.
I want the industry to believe in online games again. We have gone through a kind of nuclear winter, especially with MMOs, and that was partly due to the technology, partly the gameplay and customer expectations. But now is the time to revive the idea of how meaningful these worlds can be. […]
In 2019, he founded a studio in Edmonton, Canada. Today it is known that the survival RPG “Nightingale” is being developed there. He said in an interview (via Game Informer):
When you look at MMORPGs: There are only a few in development, even though they bring in one-fifth of all revenue in the industry.
The industry really has a blind spot there. That’s why we think that if we build a team with this much experience, we can take that as a goal.
This is Nightingale today:
All games with SpatialOS fail or are cancelled – There is little hope left
How did it really go? Unfortunately, not well at all. Improbable initially tried to really place their technology with “small developer teams” who wanted to create immense worlds. However, that turned out to be a flop:
- Games like Worlds Adrift never generated hype and were shut down early.
- Other games like Seed have been in development for ages and have practically disappeared from radar.
The company later made a strategic shift and acquired gaming studios in an attempt for them to realize their visions. But that has also not borne any fruit so far:
- “Scavengers,” perhaps the most well-known and successful game with SpatialOS, was not a hit and was abandoned early.
- The last hope is probably still the survival game Nightingale.
NFT and Metaverse instead of the future of MMORPGs
Are they still trying? No, the dream of Narula from 2017 to revive MMOs has probably been abandoned.
The company has – like so many others – switched to crypto and web3.
Since April 2022, the company has been working on “M-Square,” a web-3 metaverse project: The idea is to create a massive virtual meeting space into which developers can then integrate NFTs or other digital objects.
This is apparently meant to serve as a space for virtual concerts or events.
With “Otherside,” the company is also working on a typical “gamified metaverse” with NFTs:
One man is the hope for MMOs – says his new platform has a maximum capacity of one billion people
