GeneGames, makers of the VR Strategy Game MonkeyKing VR, announced the completion of an angel round of fundraising with ‘Hundreds of thousands of yuan,’ and that they intend to develop products in Europe and America according to Japanese VR site MoguraVR. Based on the original Chinese wording (数百万元), the exact amount raised could be between $3000 and $150 million.
In May of 2016, the company boasted a similar number in seed funding. The current angel round began at the start of 2017.
Monkey King VR is a ‘tower defense’ strategy game for the HTC Vive- not to be confused with Digital Domain’s Monkey King that we reviewed earlier this month– with Chinese and English versions available in the US on Steam and Viveport. It tells the classic Chinese tale, ‘Journey to the West.’ The popular Japanese comic Dragonball also draws from the same source material. It’s a safe subject for game makers to tackle in the People’s Republic of China, where running afoul of authorities with unique storylines can lead to disastrous consequences. One need only look at the Chinese movie industry to see the limited number of safe topics for artists to tackle. In the past ten years alone, there have been 21 Monkey King movies greenlit in China, according to IMDB. For comparison, imagine 21 cinematic adaptations of Hamlet in a decade.
In February, GeneGames partnered with German publisher Softdistribution to publish not only the HTC Vive original, but the currently-in-development PSVR version of Monkey King VR worldwide. CEO Leon Shieh told Chinese VR website 7tin, “The PSVR version is not based on the existing one. It will have new content and content that was added to the Viveport version.”
PAX attendees will have their chance to play the game at the convention in September, while the rest of us can count on a formal release at the end of the year.
