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On June 8, 2021, a PiePacker social gaming platform He left his beta stage, and he is now accessible to the general public. She was born from the imagination of two French people.
What is that ?
PiePacker is a brand new video game platform, invented by two French people: Benjamin Devian and Jules Testard.
Founded in 2020 by Benjamin Devienne and Jules Testard in Silicon Valley and moved to France, the company is a free legal platform that allows instant multiplayer play of old video games (PlayStation 1, NES, Super-Nintendo, etc.) with his friends. From its web browser, without any downloads.
The platform provides access for more than one Sixty titles, divided into three categories:
- retro games, com «Worms: World Party», «Earthworm Jim 2», «Sensible Soccer» …
- indie games Developed by third party studios;
- original creations Developed by PiePacker Studios (“Arsène Lupine: Gentleman Bomber”).
How much is it ?
One of the strengths of PiePacker is that it is free. The player does not pay anything to play, all he has to do is launch the platform from his computer.
However, it is possible to get a premium subscription, for a fee, in order to get some bonuses such as new 3D masks for video chatting, or to use your games thanks to an old cartridge player.
How it works ?
PiePacker works without hardware, or without pre-installing the software on your computer: all you have to do is open the software via your internet browser.
Once the connection is established, all you have to do is create an account and choose a video game from the list displayed.
PiePacker’s privacy is its social dimension. In other words, while you are playing and thanks to your webcam, you can chat directly with your friends in the video chat. And like other apps, PiePacker allows you to transform your avatar thanks to 3D filters and augmented reality technology. This is how its designers talk about ” social games«.
Is it legal to play these games for free?
“The process is completely legal,” promises the creators of PiePacker, who were inspired by the music platform Spotify. The best, in their opinion, would be a solution against piracy:
Retrogaming accounts for 30 million connections per day worldwide, twice the amount of current connections on Twitch. Our vision is to create “Spotify” to undo (a simple and accessible legal solution) while integrating interaction between users, so that everyone can enjoy according to their vision of games, individually or with others.
Many video game publishers see PiePacker as a file Ally against piracy. The French company lists those who have already committed to its concept, such as Interplay, Codemasters, Team 17, Piko, Broke Studios, Megacat Studios, Retrotainment…
A success story made in France
PiePacker was founded by two Frenchmen, Benjamin Devian and Jules Testard, between California (Silicon Valley), Canada and France. Benjamin Devienne founded the data science department at French video game publisher Gameloft, before joining Facebook’s Head of Analytics, then working for Twitch. Jules Testard was a university researcher, then hired for Amazon Web Services, AWS Glue… In 2020, two friends imagine PiePacker.
In March 2020, after encouragement from Tom Polish, co-founder of Zynga, Piepacker joined the group YCombinator, the startup accelerator that saw the birth of Airbnb, Twitch, Dropbox, and Reddit. This clarity aroused the interest of major investors and advisors, such as Makers Box, one of the biggest investors in the gaming world, Xavier Neal and her investment fund Kima Venture, Olivier Martrett by Serena Capital or Rothschild family.
Test 100,000 platform players
At the beginning of August 2020, at the end of the Demoday, the day of Y Combinator public offerings, Piepacker blew up its 24 hour investment order book! A start that earned him being selected by TechCrunch among the 12 Best Startups of the Year by YCombinator.
In April, in order to fund the development of PiePacker, a participatory campaign was launched on Kickstarter. The goal was to hit $75,000 in one month. Amount reached in just 20 hours. Ultimately, the count will stop after a month at more than $220,000.
Piepacker launched a closed beta at the end of December 2020, allowing more than 100,000 people to test the platform. Thus contributing to its development. The final stages of development have now been completed, and PiePacker is now available to the general public since June 8.
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