Bandai Namco invests in SuperGaming, a Pune-based game studio: details

Bandai Namco Entertainment, the Japanese game publisher known for entries such as Elden Ring, the Dark Souls Trilogy and Pac-Man, has invested in Pune-based developer SuperGaming. The company used its “Bandai Namco Entertainment 021 Fund,” a fund intended to invest in startups and build its “IP metaverse,” by investing in the Indian studio and US-based Deepmotion. The fund was launched in April last year, in anticipation of Web3 and amid other developments in the metaverse. The press release does not mention the size of the deal, but the fund’s investment size ranges from 10 million yen (about Rs. 62 lakh) to 500 million yen (about Rs. 31 crore).

“Working on PAC-MAN was a bucket list item that I had the good fortune to tick off,” SuperGaming co-founder and CEO Roby John said in a prepared statement. “A customer becoming an investor is the greatest validation we can ever ask of SuperGaming, so it’s a huge honor that Bandai Namco is investing in us and joining us on our journey to create games that people have been playing for years. ” While SuperGaming is known for its portfolio of mobile games, which includes social deduction title Silly Royale and multiplayer FPS MaskGun, they also have a cloud-based game development engine called SuperPlatform. The technology was announced last year in conjunction with Google Cloud, allowing game developers to use the engine on a SaaS (software as a service) basis to create games from scratch – active and all – in plus manage analytics, player data tracking, monetization, and integrates with games built on Unity, Unreal Engine, PlayCanvas, and Cocos Creator.

“Through this investment, we will seek to grow our business by combining our expertise in IP with a deeper understanding of the Asian market, which is expected to grow further in the future,” the statement from Bandai Namco Entertainment (BNE) reads. As mentioned earlier, the Japanese gaming giant has also invested in DeepMotion, which is known for its solutions to bring digital characters to life through AI-powered motion capture and real-time body tracking. BNE intends to create new “entertainment experiences” with this technology.

Meanwhile, SuperGaming is hard at work on Indus, its next Indo-futuristic battle royale title, set on a floating island. In it, you play as a Mythwalker, a hired gun working for the COVEN, seeking to hunt the rare mineral Cosmium, which can alter space and time. Like other titles in the genre, players are dropped onto the map to scavenge for supplies, survive, and kill anyone who stands in their way to emerge victorious. However, at a certain interval during gameplay, the Cosmium will spawn at a random time, which upon claiming grants the holder a straight win. The studio previously added Olympic pistol shooter Heena Sidhu as a playable character in Indus, pre-registrations for which are now live on the Google Play Store.