Arrivant (www.arrivant.com), a leading social game company, announced today it will be unveiling what they call their first “Microverse”—a groundbreaking social approach to the metaverse that is an integral part of Arrivant's upcoming UE5 game, Project Eluüne: StarGarden—at this week’s annual D.I.C.E. Summit (https://www.dicesummit.org/) in Las Vegas.
“We are going to redefine what social means to games and people’s idea of the metaverse,” said Cedric Gamelin, co-founder and CEO of Arrivant.
The digital metaverse marketplace is expected to become a $2-4 trillion-dollar market by 2030 as businesses build out virtual extensions of their core business, with the majority of growth projected to come from gaming.
Gamelin, a pioneer of social impact virtual reality experiences for clients such as AT&T, Google, and PBS Frontline, believes that what has generally been referred to in the games industry as a social experience has not really been social at all.
“Most games have been more akin to an independent multiplayer experience,” Gamelin says pointedly. “People playing alone together. We intend to create social games that actually facilitate and incentivize social play.”
To create social Microverses, Gamelin assembled a world-class team with an upper management roster that built and shipped the first Call of Duty for consoles together. Craig Allen, Chief Strategy Officer at Arrivant, for example, was the former CEO of Spark Unlimited which launched Call of Duty—and the company continues to add veteran talent from traditional game companies such as Epic Games, EA, Sega, Kabam, and Zynga—all drawn to Arrivant’s inspiring mission to create inclusive social spaces and engaged player communities.
“Today’s popular concept of the metaverse is focused on a top-down approach: creating vast virtual spaces for millions of anons to inhabit..” Meg McWilliams, Arrivant co-founder and COO offered, “Microverses, by contrast, offer what people are really looking for, authenticity. Small, private and customizable spaces for teams to play, share their interests and progress together in a way that deepens relationships. This is what we are providing in StarGarden.”
Arrivant’s first title, Project Eluüne: StarGarden, is a constellation of Microverses built within Unreal Engine 5 to bring to life the incredible techno-magical world of the Project Eluüne IP. StarGardens are floating virtual islands providing teams with the opportunity to gather, play games cooperatively like the 3vE creature battler, and showcase their creativity through A.I.-powered customization tools.
“In the real world we understand the value of having parks, and other community areas designed to bring people sharing a physical space together to form a neighborhood identity,” Craig Allen, Arrivant’s Chief Strategy Officer commented. “We now need to develop new systems for building communities in a virtual environment not based on the concept of geography, but connected by common interests and through trusted relationships. This is what we are creating by building Microverses.”
“For players to form new friendships with one another, we need to design spaces that provide our players the opportunity to know and trust each other as people,” offered former Dota 2 designer and now Arrivant’s Lead Systems Designer JT James. “This is why we are creating our passport system which provides individuals the ability to share their interests and connect with players like them. Or not like them. At the very least, we want to provide players the opportunity to seek out different types of player communities they want to be a part of. Our passport system will be able to improve matchmaking and allow players to connect beyond the game.”
Arrivant’s most recent step in this direction was the launch of Mission Control (https://mc.projecteluune.com/)—a player dashboard and personal passport system now serving roughly 30,000+ fans of the company’s programming. With Mission Control, players are able to create a verified soulbound identity and gain recognition for their participation in the community. By increasing alignment between players, Arrivant believes they will not only reduce player toxicity (something that roughly 83% of players have experienced while playing games) but increase the likelihood of players making new lasting friendships.
With what is being referred to as the loneliness epidemic
only worsening, the value and importance of social play on mental health and building friendships cannot be overstated. In fact, research has found that people who regularly engage in social play have stronger relationships, better communication skills, and a greater sense of overall well-being. “Belonging is a fundamental human need and in an increasingly digital world, Microverses will be the next homes for humanity,” said co-founder and Chief Economic Officer, Ramin Shokrizade, who designed the meta game design and economies for titles such as World of Warships and World of Tanks Blitz.
The ability to drive more revenue from social play games is also significant. In fact, Arrivant’s internal data indicates that games with social value have players playing twice as long and spending much more than games without such features. The financial promise of their emerging social business was so strong, Arrivant was able to raise venture funding from notable investors including C2 Ventures, Polygon Gaming, 6th Man Ventures, Everyrealm and Lightspeed Venture Partners among others.
Dave Prout, who left Epic Games to join Arrivant as VP of Operations and Product, observed that, “at a big game company it’s really hard to create deep innovation. There’s just a lot of inertia around how things are historically done. Selling products and services works. But belonging to communities is where we are the most engaged and committed longer term. Playing with our ‘ride-or-die’ friends brings a different kind of social currency that transcends traditional rewards and recognition.”
“Microverses are the foundational building blocks of the Metaverse,” said Gamelin, “and our team has both the agility of a startup and the experience of AAA to build something transformational.”
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT: Meg@arrivant.com
About Arrivant
Arrivant is a game publisher creating social-first playable worlds in collaboration with audiences providing players digital ownership and social recognition through participation, purchasing, and play. To get involved, join the community dashboard at Mission Control to start building your player passport that spans all of Arrivant’s upcoming products and gives players special access and engagement opportunities.
About Project Eluüne: StarGarden
Arrivant’s Project Eluüne: StarGarden is a free-to-play social game providing participants the opportunity to form tribes of 5-40 players, forge new friendships, craft powerful creatures, trade, battle, and collectively heal a shattered world. Learn more and join Project Eluüne online at https://projecteluune.com or join the Discord community here.
StarGarden is being built on top of Unreal Engine 5 (UE5), the world’s most open and advanced real-time 3D creation tool for photoreal visuals and immersive experiences. UE5 will allow StarGardens to provide players a truly lush, vibrant, and immersive world that can stand on equal footing with major traditional games.
MEDIA CONTACT
COO Meg McWilliams
Meg@arrivant.com
Disclosure: This press release may contain forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements describe future expectations, plans, results, or strategies (including product offerings, regulatory plans and business plans) and may change without notice. You are cautioned that such statements are subject to a multitude of risks and uncertainties that could cause future circumstances, events, or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements, including the risks that actual results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements.