The other day I wrote about how AI has accelerated the collapsing of barriers to game development and the functional shift from game developer to game creator. Over the last few years Max and I have been actively investing in UGC gaming (Fortnite and Roblox ecosystems) because the patterns just reminded us so much of early YouTube and creators there. The same way the iphone inflected YouTube’s growth (removing friction to video creation and sharing), it seems like AI is going to have a similar impact on UGC games: We’re going to see hundreds of thousands of new game creators emerging over the next few years from Fortnite and Roblox but also the new UGC platforms like Spawn, Remix, Tesana, Rosebud, Astrocade, Bitmagic and others (literally as I write this, someone has just created and sent me an archaeology adventure game set in Teotihuacan on Spawn).
Gaming has suddenly become the most exciting entertainment frontier on the planet and I can’t remember when I was this energised.
Today I get to talk about the new company that we’re building in response to this disruption. Max, Toby and I (through our Attention Holdings holdco) are investing in Chartis, the leading UGC creator services company on Fortnite. A lot of what they do is behind the scenes but you can think of them as a creator version of CAA x a16z. We’re joining full-time to help Brendan and Mike scale their model into this emerging opportunity space and help game creators (both existing and new) become wildly successful.
I first met Brendan about two years ago when he sprinted (quite literally) across Cologne to meet me and talk about his startup helping Fortnite game creators be more successful. Brendan (and his co-founder Mike) are RELENTLESS. Their hustle turned Chartis into a creator powerhouse on Fortnite, helping game creators be more successful through a range of services and initiatives (and after-parties). Anytime Brendan would call, we’d end up on the phone for hours, usually ending up at the same conclusions. It became pretty clear to the four of us that we could be building something bigger by working together as a team.
We have some very big plans. More soon but ping me if you want to talk.