Wild Pockets
End to end, open source, solution that supports creators throughout the life cycle of 3d game development.
| Date | Investors | Amount | Round |
|---|---|---|---|
| - | investor investor | €0.0 | round |
| investor | €0.0 | round | |
| investor | €0.0 | round | |
| investor investor | €0.0 | round | |
| investor | €0.0 | round | |
N/A | Acquisition | ||
| Total Funding | 000k | ||
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Wild Pockets, a venture that emerged from Carnegie Mellon University, was founded in 2008 by a team of researchers including H. James Ainsworth, Moshe Mahler, and Howard Shuste. The project originated within the university's Entertainment Technology Center, a program known for blending technology and the arts, which provided a fertile ground for the company's development. The founding team's academic and research background in entertainment technology directly shaped the company's mission and product.
The company operated as a platform-as-a-service (PaaS) targeting the burgeoning market of 3D game and simulation development. Wild Pockets provided a browser-based environment that allowed developers to create, share, and play 3D content directly within a web browser, eliminating the need for client-side installations. This was facilitated by a lightweight plugin, making the creation and distribution of interactive 3D experiences more accessible to a broader audience, including independent game developers, students, and educators. The platform offered a comprehensive suite of tools for development, a repository for sharing and discovering content, and multiplayer support, all integrated into a single web-based interface. The business model centered on providing these tools and the hosting environment, likely through a freemium or subscription-based structure, to democratize game development.
A significant milestone in the company's trajectory was its acquisition by the social gaming company Zynga in August 2011. The acquisition was a strategic move by Zynga to bolster its in-house 3D gaming capabilities and reduce its reliance on Adobe Flash, signaling a shift towards more immersive web-based gaming experiences. Following the acquisition, the Wild Pockets team and its underlying technology were integrated into Zynga's operations. The Wild Pockets platform as a standalone service was eventually discontinued as its technology was absorbed by its new parent company.
Keywords: 3D game development, browser-based gaming, platform-as-a-service, game engine, simulation development, Carnegie Mellon, Entertainment Technology Center, Zynga acquisition, web-based 3D, PaaS