We are thrilled to be leading a new investment round in arguably the coolest-named company of all time, Super Evil Megacorp, a cross-platform, cloud-first gaming company. After Super Evil launched Vainglory and scaled it to 45 million players, it was hard not to be impressed with the team and vision as they prepare to launch their next franchise, Project Spellfire, led by Kristian Segerstrale and his incredible team. Kristian and I had worked together during the “social games” era when he was the CEO of Playfish and I ran TrialPay, where Playfish was our very first social gaming client. He has lived and breathed games for 20+ years and it’s an honor to back him on this adventure.
More broadly, this investment is part of our gaming thesis, as laid out in this blog post. Rather than thinking of games as seemingly random one hit wonders with short shelf lives, we believe games now have the ability to be social networks, durable franchises, and platforms. Witness the rise of (and hours spent in!) Fortnite, the persistence of World of Warcraft (now 15 years old, $10B+ in revenue, still millions of subscribers), and the number of developers making experiences and earning money in Roblox. And it stuns a whole generation to learn that 10x more people watch the League of Legends World Championships than something as old and storied as Wimbledon.
When I was a kid, “checking email” or “playing games” both involved a trip to the “computer room” and were fringe activities. Now games are the biggest form of entertainment in the world and growing the fastest:
Behind these numbers are phenomenal entrepreneurs and great technologists, which brings us back to the coolest-named company in the world, Super Evil Megacorp. The team, technology, and approach they are assembling is world-class, and we are delighted to be their partners.
