Outpost Games bags $6.2M to help games shine in the Twitch era

Gaming is becoming an exciting spectator sport.

With the rise of esports and live-streaming channels like Twitch, a lot of gamers spend just as much time watching others play as they do behind the joystick. A new company, Outpost Games, wants to create games designed for watching, not just playing. It even goes so far as to call services like HBO Go its biggest competitor, instead of traditional gaming developers. Outpost also just secured $6.2 million in Series A funding, led by investing firm Benchmark.

“While it’s too soon to reveal specifics, we’re building content, technology, and a platform that makes games as fun to watch as they are to play,” Outpost chief executive officer and cofounder Sachin Pansuria told GamesBeat. “Most of the games that are very popular on Twitch and YouTube weren’t designed with watchability in mind, or to appeal to people who aren’t already gamers. There’s a huge opportunity to build games that can attract larger and more diverse audiences, are easy to watch, and empower players to create great performances within the games.”

Outpost plans to do this by making intuitive titles with compelling stories via multiplayer PC games. However, it won’t reveal specifically what kinds of games it working on. It did say it was making “content, technology, and a platform that makes games as fun to watch as they are to play.”