Megamod, a massively multiplayer gaming company, has raised $1.9 million to develop its user-generated content platform.
The company raised the money at a post-money valuation of $27 million. The funds will be used to support the company’s go-to-market strategy, including testing a retention and monetization model.
The round was led by investors and funds with deep backgrounds in business and entrepreneurship including Xsolla’s founder Aleksander Agapitov and his family fund Hand of Midas, as well as Rubylight Fund and other private investors.
Megamod is a UGC platform designed for creators with limited development expertise and players seeking massively multiplayer experiences.
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Launched in early 2023 to make game design tools easier to use, Megamod has proven its ability to create games 200 to 300 times more cost-effectively and faster than any traditional development company, the firm said.
In general, the platform pays a creator $5 per unit of content. For the last six months, Megamod has networked with more than 2,000 creators who have created over 50,000 games.
In a world where games are becoming plentiful, the main challenge for publishers is to keep players engaged by providing them with engaging and accessible content. Megamod is demonstrating its ability to meet this challenge, as evidenced by its listing on popular gaming portals like Y8 and CrazyGames.
In just two weeks on CrazyGames, Megamod’s games have been rated 8.8 based on over 21,000 reviews and have been enjoyed by over 340,000 players.
The availability of the games is also ensured by the Megamod app (MegaBit) which focuses on retention and social interaction. Megamod’s multiplayer capabilities allow thousands of players to interact spend time together.
The platform provides robust web and mobile crossplay, which has already resonated with hundreds of streamers who have been raffling off prizes and playing game shorts, (game excerpts with a 30-second time limit), alongside their audiences.
Frequently in the game industry, the role of the creator is forgotten, the company said. Games are often seen as a product of a company rather than a reflection of the creator’s vision. Megamod aims to change this by showcasing the creators of each single game and demonstrating that, in the age of AI and simplified tools, releasing the final product can happen in a matter of hours, not months or years.
Megamod was founded by serial entrepreneurs with more than 20 years of practice:
Dmitriy Semiriazhko, cofounder of Clowder, created over 100 social networks for businesses. He also led a user-generated content project for entertainment, birthday cards, and more, reaching 80 million people, making it the largest of its kind in the early days of social networking. A true technology enthusiast, Semiriazhko focuses on product and technology vision.
Alexey Kostarev, known for I-Jet Studio, published the Happy Farmer game for social networks, which attracted a multi-million audience. With his game development expertise and experience in building companies with more than $20 million in sales, Kostarev focuses on the marketing, business, and investor relations vision of Megamod.
Kostarev said in an email to GamesBeat that the team has more than 20 people from a varietyh of backgrounds, including game development, multinational IT companies and publishing businesses.
For UGC, Megamod said it has simplified all the development tools and made them accessible to everyone. The firm offered Voxel editors to create game experiences without any knowledge of code or any technical nuances. With the help of AI, you can simply dictate commands to in any language.
“Just say the necessary words, and our engine will program the game objects. Magic,” said Kostarev.
The game assets are small, from 28 kilobytes to 110 kilobytes. He said Megamod is for everyone, with good or bad internet. In emerging markets there is no Roblox because the games weigh a lot and are overloaded with assets.
“We are going the way of minimalism, and we are very happy that our competitors are going to hyperrealistic graphics. The niche is being freed up,” Kostarev said.
Megamod is also making games social in a new way. Megamod’s multiplayer capabilities allow thousands of players to spend time together. The platform provides web and mobile crossplay, which has already resonated with hundreds of streamers who have been raffling off prizes and playing game shorts, (games excerpts with a 30-second time limit), alongside their audiences, Semiriazhko.
Semiriazhko said that authenticity matters.
“When we released our first eight games on CrazyGames, our games were in the new games section and started getting lots of positive reviews. This led to the game being placed on the main page in the top one, and we had 350,000 users. it was only first 8 games, and we already have 60 thousands of them,” he said.
He added, “Our brains have a very sophisticated authentication mechanism. It was important for survival, so the verification mechanism is always evolving. People read that the games are real, that they are made by humans, and that’s why we got a 8.8 rating on CrazyGames. Our content is unique and authentic. It’s made by the new generation of game designers. That’s something you don’t find in Roblox or Fortnite.”
He said that Megamod has brought together fans who have become community of game developers, and he believes these developers will make great games.
