After selling early mobile-social gaming network OpenFeint to GREE for $104 million two years ago, lifelong gamer Jason Citron is now setting his ambitions on bringing core gaming to tablets.
The iOS platform has played host to many casual and arcade titles. And then it moved upmarket into mid-core gaming over the last year and a half. But is the platform now ready for die-hard gamers?
Citron is betting yes.
A year after raising some initial seed capital for his latest startup, he gave a preview of the company’s first upcoming game, Fates Forever, on-stage today at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco. In the game, you play in teams of three against other trios in a Medieval-themed environment.
“We’re doing a reinterpretation of the MOBA [multiplayer online battle arena] genre for the iPad. It’s like League of Legends for tablets,” Citron said.
He said that while tablet gaming is a fast-growing segment of the market, it hasn’t been large enough to attract gaming companies like Activision Blizzard in a serious way.
So there’s this hole in the market that Citron believes he’s uniquely able to address.
“The people who have money don’t believe the money is there yet in tablet gaming,” Citron said. “And the people who believe the market is there, don’t have the money. I believe I have the motivation and talent to do this.”
Citron has raised about $2.5 million from investors including Peter Relan’s new incubator 9+, Accel Partners, IDG Ventures, General Catalyst Partners, Time Warner and other angels like Kai Huang and Gil Pnechina.
The game, which is going to come out whenever “it’s ready” later this year, was built by an eight-person team.
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