Free Social Gaming Platform Piepacker Enters Open Beta After $3 million Seed Funding and $220k Kickstarter Campaign
Piepacker, a brand-new multiplayer social gaming platform that allows users to play fully licensed retro games online and with friends, for free, is now available in open beta, following a $3 million seed funding round and $220,000 Kickstarter campaign.
With partnerships including Team 17 and Codemasters, Piepacker’s burgeoning library currently has over 60 retro games originally launched on the original PlayStation, Super Nintendo, GBA, SEGA Mega Drive, and many other iconic consoles. Not only does this include Sensible Soccer, Worms World Party, Glover, and Earthworm Jim, but also new, retro-style indie games including Piepacker exclusives like Xeno Crisis by Bitmap Bureau and Spacegulls by Morphcat Games.
Every title supports cloud saves and the revolutionary service works directly from a Google Chrome browser and comes with built-in video chat including augmented reality 3D masks. The open beta is available in Europe, North America, Australia first and will be optimized later this summer for new territories such as Latin America, Japan, Singapore, and the Middle East.
“Our goal with Piepacker has always been to build the platform fans of retro gaming have been dreaming of,” said Benjamin Devienne, co-founder and CEO of Piepacker. “This is a service like no other, which has been reflected in how significantly we’ve been backed during our latest funding round and by our fans on Kickstarter.”
The Kickstarter campaign for Piepacker met its $75,000 goal in just 20 hours, going on to secure $220,656 pledged by 1190 backers, including one backer who pledged $10,000. It is currently part of the top 1% most successful Kickstarter campaigns of all time.
Beyond the 60+ games included as part of the service at launch, additional upcoming features will include competitions and leaderboards, Twitch integration, as well as support for legally acquired ROMs, which are playable with friends in private rooms. Physical retro gaming cartridges also work through the PieReader – an official, one-time accessory that will be sent to Kickstarter backers in October.
Piepacker Studios will also be developing its own games exclusively for the service. The first of these titles, Arsène Lupin: Gentleman Bomber, was released on May 22nd, the day when Kickstarter backers could redeem their early access to the platform.
Piepacker’s board of advisors includes former SEGA CEO Kenji Matsubara, Zynga co-founders Justin Waldron and Tom Bollich, Crunchyroll’s Kun Gao, and Humble Bundle’s Jeffrey Rosen.
The full list of 61 games available on Piepacker at launch is below:
- 40 Winks
- Addiction Pinball
- Alligator Hunt
- Alter Ego
- Barkley Shut up and Jam 2
- Blender Bros
- Böbl
- Brave Battle Saga
- Brutal Sports Football (Beastball)
- Descent Maximum
- Dragon View
- Earthworm Jim
- Earthworm Jim 2
- Evolution Soccer
- Football Madness
- FoxKids.com Micro Maniacs Racing
- Gekido
- Glover
- Gluf
- Haunted Halloween 86
- Invasion from Beyond
- Iron Commando
- Legend
- Legend (Reboot)
- Loaded
- Maniac Square
- Micro Mages
- Misplaced
- Motor Mash
- Nebs n Debs
- Old Tower
- Power Football,
- O.D.T. – Escape or Die Trying
- Psycho Pinball
- Radical Rex
- Rage of the Dragons
- Rageball
- Sensible Soccer ’98: European Club Edition
- Sensible Soccer: European Champions – 92/93 Edition
- Soccer Kid
- Spacegulls
- Star Versus
- Steel Force
- Street Racer
- Summer Challenge
- Super Bat Puncher
- Super Paw-N
- The Gadget Twins
- The Humans
- Thunder Hoop 2
- Top Racer
- Twin Dragons
- Ultimate Tennis
- Water Margin
- Winter Challenge
- Worms Blast
- Worms: World Party
- X2: No Relief
- Xeno Crisis
- Yazzie
- Zero Tolerance
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