SAN FRANCISCO – PRNewswire/ — Jump around! Jump Gaming, Inc. has launched Jump, the on-demand video game subscription service, with an emphasis on independent games. Offering gamers a 14-day free trial of the service at http://www.playonjump.com, Jump features a highly curated launch library of more than 60 games, including renowned developers Ed McMillenand Tyler Glaiel’s new game The End Is Nigh and other revered indie titles. The library will continue to grow as new games will be added each month. Jump is playable first on all Windows and Mac desktop systems via a native app, as well as offering Linux and Chrome OS access via web browser.
Anthony Palma, CEO and founder, started Jump with a group of video game industry veterans to leverage their cumulative experience in indie development, publishing, marketing, and distribution. The result is Jump’s unique understanding of the issues these indie studios confront every day.
“As a former indie developer, I learned first-hand what challenges a majority of independent studios were facing regarding distribution and discoverability,” Palma said. “When WebGL exports started popping up in game engines in 2015, we saw the potential that web technologies held for the future. It was then that we had a vision of how this new tech could create a platform that could alleviate some of the problems for indie developers and make their games easily discoverable by gamers searching for cutting-edge content. Enter Jump.”
Using its innovative HyperJump™ delivery technology, the service provides players with the same experience as a game that is fully installed on their machine, but without long download times and without requiring large amounts of disk space. This unique, nonstreaming data-transfer system avoids latency and quality issues that have plagued other game services by sending the game in chunks to a user’s device, and has them playing most games in under a minute. In October, Jump will unveil a new custom-caching system, allowing subscribers to choose how much hard drive space they want to devote to games in Jump so that recently played games load even faster.
Priced at $9.99 a month, players receive unlimited access to the entire library, which is carefully curated based on reviews, awards, and sales to aid gamers in discovering the best in indie games. Along with The End is Nigh, September’s catalog features other exceptional independent game titles such as Pony Island, Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor, The Bridge, Teslagrad, and Beatbuddy. Subscribers can expect approximately 10 new titles on October 1st, and each month following.
Jump will also feature a recommendation engine once it collects player data, which will help gamers discover other indie games they may enjoy based not only on genre, but individual play-style, motivations, and themes. This offers an opportunity for players to find new games to try without committing to any purchases and without in-app transactions or advertising — allowing them to have a seamless and uninterrupted game experience without any risk.
Jump raised $1.9M in Series A funding from prominent angels including board member Montgomery Kersten, Buddy Arnheim of Perkins Coie, and former partners of VC firms investing individually, with previous Seed investments from Boost VC (led by Adam Draper) and Sand Hill Angels. Additionally, Jump is supported by a robust advisory board composed of more than 15 video game industry and Silicon Valley executives including Tom Kalinske (chairman of Gazillion Games and former CEO of Sega), Mike Fischer (former CEO of Square Enix and former head of marketing for Xbox), Louis Castle(founder of Westwood Studios and current head of Amazon Game Studios), Tony Parisi (head of AR/VR at Unity and pioneer of WebGL and VR), and Rick Tallman (COO of Vungle), Mike Williams (former CFO of EA Games Label), and Robert Bowling (newly appointed Head of Publishing at Jump and former VP of Publishing at Humble Bundle). The advisory board believes in the importance of indie games and the opportunity for a subscription service tailored around gamer’s preferences and needs.
“Independent studios are the lifeblood of innovation in the industry,” Tom Kalinske said. “Many of the greatest game developers in the history of video games started out as pioneering indies pushing the boundaries of game-making, storytelling, and technology. Indie studios are able to take risks, be provocative, and drive the industry forward with their creativity and new ideas, and are helpful in getting new gamers, programmers, and artists, working in the industry.”
Advisors also see the shift in consumer buying behavior from physical ownership to content accessibility at any time, and combined with Jump’s tech and indie discoverability goals, made the service an easy choice to get behind. “In my time at Amazon as VP of digital video and MP3, I saw the powerful impact of bringing a subscription service to digital content,” advisor Mike Fischer added. “I had the privilege to work with Tom Kalinske at Sega when he paved the way with the very first service like this with Sega Channel, which was decades ahead of its time. Jump made me confident that we now have both the content and the technology to make this business model work.”
Here is the Jump Trailer:
For more information on Jump, please visit http://www.playonjump.com.
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