Motiga, an independent PC gaming studio based in Bellevue, will be traveling about 5,000 miles next month to the largest interactive entertainment event in the world.
The young company will be a first-time exhibitor at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany from August 5-9. With roughly 700 exhibitors from 40 countries attending each year, Motiga executives say Gamescom will be a game-changing event for the company.
“This is a super exciting moment for Motiga to get out there and begin our international outreach,” said David Reid, Senior Vice President of Publishing at Motiga. “This is a hugely important show in Motiga’s life.”
Motiga was founded in August 2010, and began developing their first multiplayer game, “Gigantic,” in 2012. Having already brought the game to PAX Prime and E3, this will be the first time the company exhibits the game for players overseas.
A team of 50-60 Motiga employees and volunteers from the company’s Community Coaches program will attend the German event. Although there are several industry veterans among Motiga’s ranks, this will be the first time many employees and the company as a whole attend Gamescom.
Swarms of developers, fans, businesses and press will fill the Koelnmesse exhibition center for hundreds of game premieres in all types of genres. Last year, around 335,000 people attended.
“If you’ve been to PAX Prime, you have a pretty good idea of what Gamescom feels like,” said Reid. “It’s a collision of PAX’s focus on gamers and E3 with the business and press feel. It can be a pretty exhausting show.”
The game, which will go into Beta testing within the next month or so, allows players to play as a sniper, spell-caster or other characters alongside a massive guardian. Reid says the focus of Gigantic focuses is more on aiming, precision and dodging, making it feel like a blend between a PC and console game.
Reid says the company is hoping to release Gigantic by the end of 2015.
Despite the rise of console games in entertainment market, PC games still play a large place in the gaming market, says Reid. The cost, lack of certifications, and other aspects of PC gaming make it a popular starting point for independent developers.
“A lot of the really innovative stuff was born on the PC,” said Reid. “Especially today, it’s very easy for developer to put their game up online.”
The German market is especially PC-focused, he said, making it an ideal market for Gigantic.
In the meantime, Motiga will be bringing Gigantic to Windows 10 and Xbox One as a part of it’s partnership with Microsoft, which was announced in March. They eventually plan on fully adapting it to console gaming systems.
The company will also work on expanding to the Asian markets. To bring a game to markets like China, Japan, South Korea and other countries requires working with different languages, gamer preferences and some government regulations.
“Europe is a field of foreign countries, but Asia feels like a different planet in many ways,” said Reid.
