Meet the First People on the Ground at Resolution Games
Today we’re excited to share that we have closed a Series C funding round of $25 million (USD), allowing us to expand our intellectual property and elevate the maturing VR market. This is a huge milestone for us and a great sign that the market is maturing. But we wouldn’t be here without a lot of hard work. In today’s blog post we caught up with our co-founders and first employees to give a glance at our journey, and to share how this funding will impact our future.
Resolution Games was founded in 2015 in Stockholm, Sweden by industry veterans Tommy Palm (CEO), Martin Vilcans (CTO) and Paul Brady (CCO). At this time, VR was in its infancy, and we were creating titles for the Samsung Gear VR.
So why did we decide to jump into the VR industry so early, and why did our first employees decide to join our company?
Tommy (CEO): “I have enjoyed games as long as I can remember and have especially been interested in working with the latest technology available as a game developer. So the leap into VR was appealing as it allowed players to actually step into the game and be a part of it. In fact, I had a chance to try VR in 1992, and even back then I had a gut instinct that this technology would be big.”
Paul (CCO): “In 2015 when we founded Resolution Games, VR was emerging as a new frontier with more promise than I had seen with any industry prior. It offered an opportunity for us to build a team of pioneers that play a core role in determining the direction and heights the market could go. Ever since then we have strived to play a positive role in setting standards across everything we do - from games development to marketing. This is the exciting part that keeps us pushing every day.”
Martin (CTO): “When we started Resolution Games, the Oculus Rift had only been around for a short time and was only used by early adopters. There were new devices coming out that used mobile phones as the main component, including Google Cardboard, and while it was fun to play around with them, they weren’t platforms we wanted to create software for. This changed when the Samsung Gear VR came around. It had good enough quality and usability while not being very expensive. It was obvious that this was very cool technology and that it had lots of potential, so we started to develop games for the platform.”
Huiting (Producer): “While getting my masters at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, I was introduced to a lot of state-of-the-art interactive technology including multitouch for various AR/VR devices and controllers. I ended up making an AR sandbox project with other students, where one player controls a penguin on a digital screen to reach candies at different heights while another player modifies the terrain for the penguin by moving sand around. This project showed me the potential of how we can interact with the digital world and the future of gaming. Around this time, our CEO Tommy Palm was a guest lecturer in my game design course and spoke about VR & AR games. It was really cool to see a game company focusing on this tech that early in its infancy. I was curious about what magic can happen in the field, so I decided to pursue my career at Resolution Games in the VR and AR industry, and I’ve been loving it so far.”
Jonathan (Concept Artist): “Just like most of my colleagues, I always have enjoyed playing games and have had a passion for making them. However, my first introduction to VR wasn’t until I interviewed for my position at Resolution Games. I tried out the swamp level in Bait!, and it was a really cool experience. I was not only impressed by the tech - which back then was a headset that you put your head in with one button on the side for the controls - but I also liked that everyone on the team was passionate about what they were doing and down to earth as well. I got the feeling that the company was in for the long run and that everyone truly believed that VR was going to be big.
Looking back at the VR tech in 2015 and how far it has come makes me extremely excited for the future and lucky that I have been a small part of its advancement.”
Linus (Audio Director): “My first project at Resolution Games was composing music and creating sounds for a VR game that turned out to be Bait!. When I arrived at the tiny office, I was shown a few VR demos to get a lay of the land - one of them being an HTC Vive demo at the bottom of the sea with different fish and a life-size whale passing by. I immediately was blown away by the experience and became very excited to work with this new level of tech. The development of Bait! was a true joy. We had a lot to discover in how to build a game in VR, especially since the old conventions of locomotion interaction wouldn’t work. I was also able to experiment with how to implement sounds and music to best achieve the unique sense of immersion that VR enables.”
A lot has happened since our studio was first founded. We’ve developed 14 games, moved offices 3 times, expanded to almost 100 employees and have had the privilege of developing games for the latest VR and AR tech. We’ve worked extremely hard to get to this place, but we’ve also had a lot of fun along the way.
Here are some of our favorite memories:
Jonathan: “One of my favorite memories is the small dog that roamed around our first office. We named her Trashdog because of her interest in going through our trash bins when no one was there to stop her. Nobody really knew who owned her, other than that it was someone in another office in our building. We ended up naming the team working on Bait! after her.”
Huiting: “One day in 2016 when we were making Wonderglade, Tommy suddenly announced that we were going to Gröna Lund, an amusement park in Stockholm, that afternoon to do research for the game. It was such a surprise! We tested out different attractions and had a small competition among groups. It was a really fun and interesting experience. I learned the importance of observing, interacting and feeling the vibe on-site to make games and experiences in VR that resonate with people.”
Linus: “In our early years, we were fortunate enough to take a trip to Nice, France for some team bonding and inspiration. I remember our CEO Tommy sleeping in a cocoon-like tent stretched between two trees in the garden like some hermit while the rest of us had cozy rooms. I also share an outdoor interest and ever since then the two of us and several other colleagues have become a group that hangs out and enjoys outdoor activities such as running, ice skating, canoeing, etc. I believe that doing these activities together has really helped us bond and make even better games.”
Tommy: “With every game we release we throw a launch party. For Narrows, we held a fantastic release party at the Vasa Museum that included pirate-themed costumes. Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to meet or throw parties for the last year and a half and I really miss this. Hopefully we can have a grand celebration with our next game launch.”
Paul: “One of my favorite memories is when we launched Acron: Attack of the Squirrels at PAX West. This was one of our most innovative titles at the time. We created it with the intent of exposing more people to VR, and it worked amazingly well! It was fun to see friends and families come by the booth and at first be hesitant to play the VR version then quickly opt for VR after experiencing the game from mobile. It showed very clearly that although there are many challenges with taking VR mainstream, there are also many creative solutions developers can implement, and once people experience VR in a positive way they absolutely light up with joy.”
Martin: “My favorite memory is fairly recent and happened with the launch of Demeo. A few minutes after release, I joined a game with three others who were all beginners, and we had to figure out how the game worked together. I hadn’t played the work-in-progress game for some time, so a lot of it was new for me too. We didn’t get very far on the first attempts, but it was great to see how good the game was and experience it together with actual players. The dev team had worked hard on the game for years, going through ups and downs, so it was a great moment to finally get it out there. And then, seeing it so well-received by the community was a great feeling.”
We could go on and on with our favorite memories, but we’ll leave you with just those for now. Jumping back to today, we are extremely grateful to close our Series C. We see vast potential in VR and that the market is maturing. We want to up the game and standard for quality to ensure VR users have the best possible experience: that VR games not just meet - but surpass - the potential from what we’ve seen on other platforms like PC and console. The funding will also help accelerate our company growth and scale ahead of the projected market growth as the industry model shifts toward games as a service (GaaS) and larger teams are needed to support games post-launch with live-ops teams.
We are very excited for the future of Resolution Games and for the industry as a whole and can’t wait to bring you along on this journey.
