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Ben Vu is back! A look inside the development of Places VR
Between 2009 and 2014, SkyVu Entertainment and its Battle Bears games became a sign of Omaha’s inevitable rise to national prominence. In 2009 Ben Vu, the founder of SkyVu Entertainment, launched their first game Battle Bears. Within a year they had 6 million downloads. In two years, 12 million. Battle Bears games–of which there were many–regularly topped…
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Streamweaver turns Twitch gamers into influence marketers
In 2015 Swedish gamer PewDiePie earned $12 million thanks to more than 47 million subscribers on his YouTube page. More and more, fans are tuning in as gamers livestream games on Twitch.tv, which has more than 1.5 million broadcasters and 100 million visitors a month. Cedar Rapids startup Streamweaver wants to help gamers monetize their followings on…
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Fireshark Gaming expands from Wichita to Omaha
The unique immersive gaming platform has arrived at The Mark in Omaha, Nebraska. Fireshark Gaming launched in April 2015 as a standalone entertainment space in Wichita, Kansas. Since then 25,000 visitors have tried out the system. “People get out of their house, get in a car, drive to our store, just to have a Fireshark…
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How Anvilhead Studios tapped Omaha’s e-sports scene
In early April Anvilhead Studios sponsored NETWAR, an Omaha LANfest chapter of gaming enthusiasts. “There were about 600 hard-core gamers in a space that covered six basketball floors,” said Steven Taylor, CEO of Anvilhead Studios. The NETWAR event was held at The Mark in Elkhorn, Nebraska, and ran over a 27-hour period. The game development company was…
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Anvilhead Studios wants to change the way you game
Two years ago, Steven Taylor, Founder & CEO of Omaha-based Anvilhead Studios, was feeling stagnant in his latest business venture and wanted to change things up. Soon he found himself at Interface Web School, taking the Ruby on Rails course which was housed in the same building as the Straight Shot accelerator. “I always had…
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Udder Panic sucks you into playing for charity
Beam up cows in your UFO and make a kid’s wish come true. Udder Panic is the latest free-to-play mobile game from Omaha-based JB Gaming, in which you play an alien in a UFO, attempting to suck up cows while avoiding bombs and secret agents (Men In Black?). The game is very easy to play and hard…
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Why Riot Games loves St. Louis
St. Louis engineers play a key role in producing the online battle arena game League of Legends. Headquartered in Santa Monica, Calif., Riot Games, a subsidiary of Chinese investment behemoth Tencent Holdings, has offices in far-flung cities such as Berlin, Seoul, Istanbul and Sydney. Compared to those cities, it would seem peculiar that St. Louis would…
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Coinplay.io offers indie game bundles for your BitCoin
Kansas City based digital game store Coinplay.io has launched game bundles to help developers sell more copies of their games. In March, Coinplay.io launched a brand new website ahead of their demo day pitch at BetaBlox, a Kansas City based startup incubator. At the event, Shane Park, CEO and co-founder of Coinplay.io, explained to a combined audience of…
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Fireshark’s immersive game theater is like laser tag—only way, way better
The Fireshark platform offers unique social gameplay across the floor and along four walls. Kent Johnson, founder of Wichita-based Fireshark Gaming, came up with the idea for an immersive theater 18 months ago out of a desire to create something for his teenage sons to enjoy. “He has three sons, all in high school and middle school,” said…
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Clockwork Demon’s indie game Adopted raises $17,000 in first 4 days of Kickstarter
Lincoln-based game company Clockwork Demon raised over $17,000 in its first 4 days of its Kickstarter campaign for its first game, Adopted, and is poised to reach over $20,000.