Midwest Games founder and CEO Ben Kvalo sees the potential for a “mega-hit” video game coming out of Wisconsin in the near future as the regional industry continues to mature.
The Green Bay-based publishing studio recently completed a $3 million investment round, according to an announcement yesterday from lead investor TitletownTech. Midwest Games’ operations are located within the venture capital studio’s Green Bay offices.
In an interview yesterday, Kvalo said much of the funding round will go toward investing in game development at independent studios located in the region and elsewhere.
“Obviously, content is king in our business … We are called Midwest Games, which is our focus, but that doesn’t limit us,” he said. “Really, we’re looking wider than that at, what are these places that are underserved around the world, which is most places, really.”
He noted two-thirds of the video game industry is located in three states: California, Washington and Texas. The rest of the country is heavily underrepresented in the industry, though he said the Midwest gets a leg up from the concentration of activity in Madison alone.
Video game companies with a presence in the city include Activision — through its subsidiary Raven Software — EA, Bethesda, Gearbox Publishing and Krafton, he said.
“Those are five major players, and I’m not sure that anywhere else in the world has all five of those in one city,” he said, adding a Wisconsin-based studio called PerBlue “has done some incredible things” in the mobile gaming space.
Meanwhile, Raven Software has worked on games in the Call of Duty series, which is one of the most successful video game franchises in history.
In the coming years, Kvalo expects to see more games coming out of Wisconsin as more readily available advanced design and production tools enable projects from independent studios. Plus, he noted many veterans of the industry — which is now about 50 years old — may be looking to relocate from the coasts back to their Midwest roots, especially as remote work becomes more common.
“I think we’re going to see an influx of veteran game developers, we’re going to have a whole new wave of new developers that have easy access to make games, and that kind of blend is going to really boost the industry in Wisconsin,” he said. “And we’re going to see more games come out, and my hope is one of those is a mega-hit and really puts Wisconsin on the map.”
Kvalo, a UW-Green Bay graduate, said he has bootstrapped the company up to this point. After working for industry leaders such as Blizzard and 2K, he left Netflix Games in May and recently launched Midwest Games.
Using his connections at the university, he connected with TitletownTech — a collaboration between the Green Bay Packers and Microsoft — as well as other investors that joined the $3 million round.
TitletownTech Partner Cordero Barkley said the group is “thrilled” to invest in Midwest Games.
“We recognize the transformative potential of Ben’s vision and wholeheartedly support its positive impact on the games ecosystem and beyond,” he said in a statement.
Other participants in the round include Green Bay’s Tundra Angels, Brightstar Wisconsin in Milwaukee, the statewide angel network Wisconsin Investment Partners, as well as Bay Tek Entertainment owner and CEO Larry Treankler.
Looking ahead, Kvalo said the company will “more than likely” explore raising further funds at some point, but added that’s to be determined. In the gaming industry, a single game “taking off in a major way” could have a big impact on the publisher’s trajectory, he explained.
Midwest Games previously announced its inaugural title, a multiplayer fighting game called RA RA BOOM, which was developed by Cincinnati-based Gylee Games. Kvalo said his company has a second game signed on and in the works, which has yet to be announced.
“We are on the verge of signing actually a few more, three to four more titles,” he said. “So we very quickly have a very large title slate coming together, and our pipeline is just really strong. What we’re seeing is that there’s a lot of underserved developers that are just waiting to talk to somebody … We’re getting an incredible amount of inquiries.”
See the TitletownTech release: https://www.wisbusiness.com/2023/titletowntech-invests-in-midwest-games/
Hear more from Kvalo on the Midwest gaming industry:
Listen to an earlier podcast with Barkley: https://www.wisbusiness.com/2022/wisbusiness-the-podcast-with-cordero-barkley-titletowntech/
–By Alex Moe
