Video game accelerator program Global Top Round (GTR), has announced its winners for the 2022 cohort at this year’s conference in Lulea, Sweden. The event included some interesting talks about gaming in the Arctic region as well as advice for developers.
The program offers not only financial investment, but also support and advice from a range of industry experts as well as access to the network of studios involved with the scheme, with previous winners including successful mobile (and PC) title ‘I’m Not Jelly’ from Simple Game.
The winning studios and their respective games were:
- Mastodonte – Beat the Clock
- Studio Chahut – Dog in the Machine
- CinderCat Games – Glum
- Melbot Studios – GodsTV
- Studio 85 – Magicards: The Elemental Kingdoms
- BLACKBOX Studios – Mecha Attack
- Enchanted Works – Nomori
- Digital Devotion Games – Project Tumble
- Sager Entertainment Group LLC – Spectrum: Tactical Stealth Action
- Pentakill Studios – The Occultist
The ten studios are eligible for equity funding starting at $40,000, with the potential to receive a follow-up investment of $60,000 as well as further fund-raising led by Global Top Round. Additionally, GTR will support the titles by advising on their game development and introducing them to the industry’s leading investors and publishers.
Customisation is key
The games came from a broad range of genres and influences, but one common factor amongst them all was a focus on customisation as a selling point. This was front and centre of each pitch, and talking to the studios there it was apparent that many of them, having grown up within the lanscape of Roblox, Minecraft and other such titles, now see non-customisable games as somehow being incomplete. I was met with many quizzical looks when I questioned the prevalence of world building mechanics within games for which this wasn’t the main premise – it seems that for those of a certain generation of gamers, the ability to influence the structure of a game is as fundamental as being able to toggle off the sound effects. It was certainly an eye-opener and it will be interesting to see whether this trend does extend into the future as more and more developers come to see customisation as the norm.
Pontus Mahler, Vice President of Business Development at Global Top Round , said “This year’s studios really blew us away with their game-changing projects, we’re optimistic each of these titles have the chance to succeed and land major deals to help them scale their business.”
