Ex-EA, Blizzard And Sony Game Devs Raise $13M For New 'Not Metaverse' Gaming Startup

A group of veteran video game developers from the likes of Blizzard, Electronic Arts, Microsoft and Sony have secured $13 million in funding as they work on a platform they envision will take advantage of the so-called "metaverse."

Web3 gaming company Avalon Corp raised the amount in a round led by Bitkraft Ventures, Decrypt reported.

Coinbase Ventures, Delphi Digital, Hashed and Mechanism Capital, among others, participated in the round, according to the outlet.

Angel investors such as Twitch co-founder Kevin Lin and former Microsoft executive Charlie Songhurst were also part of the round.

Avalon Corp, founded by leaders who worked on the "Call of Duty," "God of War" and "Assassin's Creed" franchises, as well as 2022 D.I.C.E. Game of the Year awardee "Elden Ring," is currently building a platform for games that could take advantage of the metaverse, VentureBeat reported.

The Encyclopedia Britannica defines the metaverse as a "proposed network of immersive online worlds experienced typically through virtual reality or augmented reality in which users would interact with each other and purchase goods and services, some of which would exist only in the online world."

Avalon Corp would like to "empower gamers, creators, anyone to build worlds" that could, over time, become akin to those that were featured in the 2011 science fiction novel "Ready Player One," according to its CEO, Sean Pinnock.

However, Pinnock and Avalon Corp chief product officer Jeffrey Butler told Decrypt that they do not see their Orlando, Florida-based studio's flagship product, Avalon, as a metaverse per se because of how the word has been co-opted and used.

"At Avalon we are creating an interoperable universe for creators to build the content of their dreams. And [in] our vision of something like a—not metaverse—we imagine that to build such a thing is incredibly challenging and in fact impossible for a single company to do it," Pinnock said in an interview with the outlet.

Both Pinnock and Butler believe it will be game developers, not consumer brands, who will bring the truest version of any metaverse into reality as they have the required experience to bring an AAA game to fruition.

At the same time, the company also said it has the unique experience among its leaders to solve the problems that creators and designers will face in the future.

"We have an opportunity to change the digital world and we truly believe we are the right team to ensure these changes are beneficial for both creators and players," Pinnock said in an interview with GamesBeat.

Avalon Corp's flagship product is being built on Epic Games' Unreal Engine 5 and will incorporate MMO (massively multiplayer online game) and metaverse elements.

The company has not committed to a specific blockchain yet for its interoperable economy, but Pinnock has expressed a strong affinity for Ethereum Layer 2 protocols.