(Bloomberg) -- Improbable Worlds Ltd., backed by SoftBank Group Corp.'s Vision Fund, said it's in talks for major game publishers to adopt its virtual world simulation software.
The London-based startup is aiming to make an announcement “very soon,” Improbable's co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Herman Narula said in an interview on Bloomberg Television. Improbable's SpatialOS software, which can be used to build vast virtual worlds for massively multiplayer online games, already powers independent titles such as Bossa Studios' Worlds Adrift and Spilt Milk Studios' Lazarus.
Traditional MMOs such as Activision Blizzard Inc.'s World of Warcraft and Square Enix Holding Co.'s Final Fantasy XIV create sprawling virtual worlds by running multiple copies of their games on separate servers to accommodate millions of subscribers. That's forced developers to reduce the level of detail in textures or the number of interactive objects in the world. SpatialOS is already capable of supporting as much as 100 times more concurrent players, with much more detail, according to Narula.
“Our end game is to be able to create virtual worlds where millions of people can simultaneously interact together,” Narula said. “All developers want to do more when it comes to the worlds that they imagine.”
The multiplayer game Worlds Adrift employs Improbable's SpatialOS to create a virtual environment of floating islands that players can explore in flying ships. The world is persistent, which means players can leave permanent marks on the environment -- abandon a crashed ship, and the wreckage will remain in place until salvaged by someone else.
Some of the games using SpatialOS aim to offer more than entertainment. Berlin-based Klang Games has teamed up with Harvard Law School professor Lawrence Lessig to create Seed, an MMO title billed as an experiment in governance. In the game, players collaborate in colonizing a planet, balancing economic needs and environment sustainability.
Improbable's Narula has joked that the company's ultimate goal is to create “The Matrix,” from the 1999 movie depicting a virtual world that's indistinguishable from reality. His vision has already attracted backers such as Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, Hong Kong-based Horizons Ventures and Singapore state-owned investment company Temasek Holdings.
In May, SoftBank led a $502 million fundraising round in Improbable, valuing it at about $1.04 billion. The investment was part of founder Masayoshi Son's $100 billion Vision Fund. The fund's deals have ranged from ride sharing, co-working and robotics to agriculture, cancer detection and autonomous driving. Son has said he expects synergies between the companies in the fund's broad portfolio.
“Logistics and automation are huge areas where simulation can play a large role,” Narula said.
--With assistance from Karen Ka-Ying Lee
To contact the reporters on this story: Pavel Alpeyev in Tokyo at palpeyev@bloomberg.net, Angie Lau in Hong Kong at alau42@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Robert Fenner at rfenner@bloomberg.net, Reed Stevenson
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