Bright Star Studios

Bright Star Studios

A global independent game developer crafting next generation MMO franchise experiences utilizing its own proprietary engine.

  • Edit
Get premium to view all results
DateInvestorsAmountRound
-investor investor investor investor

€0.0

round
investor

€0.0

round
investor investor investor investor investor investor investor investor investor

€0.0

round
investor

€0.0

round
*

BRL1.0m

Seed
Total Funding000k

Financials

Estimates*

Get premium to view all results
Edit
Revenues, earnings & profits over time
EUR20192020202120222023
Revenues00000000000000000000
EBITDA00000000000000000000
Profit00000000000000000000
EV00000000000000000000
EV / revenue00.0x00.0x00.0x00.0x00.0x
EV / EBITDA00.0x00.0x00.0x00.0x00.0x
R&D budget00000000000000000000

Source: Company filings or news article

Notes (0)
More about Bright Star Studios
Made with AI
Edit

Bright Star Studios is an independent video game development studio established in 2019 and based in Aarhus, Denmark. Founded by Mark Laursen, Sage Durain, Joris Huijbregts, and Loren Roosendaal, the company originated from a group of friends aiming to create a significant new massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). Laursen, the CEO, brings extensive experience from the gaming industry, including co-founding eSports organizations and other game development ventures.

The studio's flagship project is Ember Sword, a free-to-play, sandbox MMORPG. A primary objective for the company is to address common issues in the MMORPG market, such as high-friction access and closed-off game economies. To achieve this, Bright Star Studios developed its own proprietary engine, Project SERIUS, which enables fast, browser-based gameplay without lengthy downloads, making the game highly accessible. The engine is built in C++ and compiled to WebAssembly, allowing the entire game to run locally in a browser with a very small initial download.

Ember Sword's business model centers on a player-driven economy that integrates blockchain technology. Revenue is generated from commissions on in-game asset sales, such as cosmetic items and virtual land plots, which are owned by players as non-fungible tokens (NFTs). This "play-to-earn" model allows players to monetize rare cosmetic items they find through gameplay by trading them on marketplaces. The game avoids pay-to-win mechanics; items that confer a gameplay advantage cannot be bought and must be earned through playing. The game's currency, $Ember, facilitates these transactions. Bright Star initially used Polygon and later Immutable X as its layer-2 solution for handling Ethereum-based transactions, before migrating to Mantle to enhance the player economy and simplify user onboarding.

Gameplay in Ember Sword is set in a fantasy universe and features a classless combat system where a character's abilities are determined by their equipped weapons and armor. Players can engage in both player-versus-environment (PvE) and player-versus-player (PvP) combat, as well as non-combat activities like resource gathering and crafting. The world is divided into different zones, some of which are designated for open PvP where players risk losing their gear upon defeat. After several testing phases, including an early access launch on December 2, 2024, Bright Star Studios announced the shutdown of Ember Sword's servers on May 21, 2025, due to insufficient funding, despite having raised over $7.55 million across four funding rounds and conducting a virtual land sale that drew over $203 million in pledges.

Keywords: Bright Star Studios, Ember Sword, MMORPG, blockchain gaming, play-to-earn, NFT, player-owned economy, proprietary game engine, Project SERIUS, Mark Laursen, free-to-play, sandbox game, browser-based gaming, virtual land, Ethereum, Mantle, web3 gaming, MMO, game development, crypto gaming, digital assets

Analytics
Unlock the full power of analytics with a premium account
Track company size and historic growth
Track team composition and strength
Track website visits and app downloads