Massively multiplayer online (MMO) games are only getting…  massive-er.

Gaming “lore” - the narrative behind characters, factions, kingdoms, and histories - is biblical in its size and complexity.

The multi-studio effort required to produce these volumes of content is pushing production costs towards $1b… and even 30-strong writing teams are cracking under the workload.

Time spent mapping plotlines and decision points also means the “human touch” can get lost… which is maybe why NPC dialogue ends up being so notoriously corny.

Combined, console gaming, PC gaming, VR, and the exploding mobile games sector are worth almost 10x as much as global cinema, set to reach $294 billion in 2024.

Here's why we invested in Nucanon, and why we think gaming studio models of old could be taking an arrow to the knee...

Challenger approaching!

Lore filters down from the main storyline to the tiniest in-game collectibles. From the game’s title to arcane in-jokes shared in subreddits.

As well as providing true immersion for aficionado players and dramatically extending a game’s lifespan, in-depth lore opens the doors to sequels, spin-offs, DLC, and acquisitions by TV studios (The Witcher and The Last Of Us being notable examples).

The richer the content, the more potential revenue streams in the studio’s future.

But the grunt work behind world-building and endless connecting between storyline nodes is consuming 35% of a writing team’s workload. That includes both “mission” and “persona” writers who pass the script back and forth, sometimes across 2 studios because one is no longer enough, working alongside up to 30 different development partners.

That “script” isn’t just crafting conversations - it’s designing hundreds of quests and encounters with multiple possible outcomes, decision trees to map those outcomes, and intricate character backstories.

And “AAA franchises” (the engines behind blockbusters like Call of Duty, FIFA, and GTA) can cost >$1 billion to make.

By the time Rockstar Games releases GTA VI in 2025, fans will have waited 12 years since the last edition. Even if the average player gets a year of entertainment (diehards will complete the single player campaign in a few days!), this means players are devouring content-heavy games 12x faster than studios can make them.

For smaller teams, competing with standards of player expectation is already impossible.

Large Language Models (LLMs) seem like the obvious answer. The gaming sector is the cradle of digital innovation, and studios are far from AI-shy.

But it’s not cheap (or simple) for small-studio game devs to hand the work over to a generative language model either. Plus, the magic of gaming narratives often comes from the brilliant (human) creators behind them.

Nucanon takes on the mammoth task of behind-the-scenes lore generation, so writing teams can focus on the quirks and creativity that make far-away worlds feel like familiar places.

Ready player one

Currently building XP in the Futureverse Base Camp, CEO and founder Nilu Kulasingham has lived and breathed gaming since he was 8 years old.

He founded the League of Legends website Pavarine (800k monthly active users), which Gamespot acqui-hired so Nilu could run their League of Legends Division. He’s built computer games, competed in e-sports, and worked for Gamespot and Gamurs in both developer and content roles.

This is a man who knows games.

He also knows people - specifically Google Play Head of Biz Dev David Yin, and VP of Activision Blizzard Nick Wong, who he’s impressively brought on as advisors.

He’s already raised an angel round from Jason Calacanis, and a pre-seed round from Antler.

He has Visual Concepts (creator of NBA 2K) and Chinese developer Fantasy Westworld Journey as paying clients, as well as 15,000 demo users, and a 3,500-strong waitlist.

His partnership with Gamurs is set to give him access to their monthly active user base… of 66 million global gamers.

And he’s already collecting prizes, with Nucanon winning the Immutable X Hackathon and Judges and Audiences Choice at Fishburners, and placing as a finalist in a16z's SPEEDRUN.

You’re finally awake

AI tools exist to help teams generate content, process data, and write scripts.

Nucanon’s differentiation lies with its gaming nativity.

Unlike the project management (Confluence, Notion) often used to track lore, or the gaming-specific writing software (Arcweave, Kanka) without AI power, Nucanon was built by a gamer and game-maker, for gamers and game-makers. Nilu says:

“We built Nucanon using vector databases to accommodate fan engagement, enabling them to create and evolve lore themselves. There’s a massive appetite for that, which has only been partially satiated by in-forum fanfic writing. Fan participation increases lore complexity, increases engagement, and informs future updates and sequels - creating network effects.”

Jade Raymond, one of the creators behind Assassin’s Creed, says:

“Hit franchises of the future need to ensure quality and canon even when we hand over ownership to the fans. Fans will have creative power to steer the story, shape the game universe, and spur virality[...] The key feature game studios need to design for today is extensibility - the inherent ability of the IP to be malleable, to grow and adapt along with its fan base.”

And it’s not game over there.

Nucanon offers studios several features the general-purposers don’t, such as the ability to easily navigate, visualise, and manage storylines and their various branches - in an intuitive node-based interface.

It’s incorporated generative AI from day zero - rather than redesigning to accommodate it.

It offers a natural rollout opportunity from laptop to tabletop - i.e. Warhammer, Dungeons & Dragons, and their millions of lore-abiding players - as well as the TV and film industry (since not every fantasy writer has George RR Martin’s encyclopaedic brain).

The long view goes as far as education and businesses, where non-professional storytellers and scripters can easily build worlds for their websites and ad campaigns.

Because that’s what entertainment, education, sales, marketing, and branding all amount to in essence… storytelling.

Mass effect

Nilu’s product vision is to turn Nucanon into the “GitHub for lore”. He says:

“There are incumbents well placed to exploit advances in LLMs, but those incumbents have little incentive to focus their product roadmaps on the niche vertical of gaming development tools. What we want to do is create a new category of software for gaming companies that general purpose tools like Notion or Confluence wouldn’t go near.”

Large Language Models only generate ~30% of the value in Nucanon's product.

Its true value lies with a feature suite designed to support gaming narrative teams and engage fans, which has the potential to create defensible network effects.

It could massively reduce the time to market for franchise studios, but it also opens up the lower end of the market - small, indie, and technical-only studios without budgets for 20-strong writing teams or external agency hires.

“The industry is maturing and there are thousands of game types vying for attention. Smaller studios will struggle to differentiate in terms of mechanics or technical abilities, but they can differentiate with the kind of stories that make lifelong emotional impact on players.”

Studios are realising that the emotional connection and total immersion lore facilitates is extremely valuable.

And Nilu’s lifelong immersion in gaming means he gets immersion.

Nilu has just appointed a Narrative Director and Lead Developer, creating space for him to level up his day-to-day CEO responsibilities.

It’s dangerous to go alone! Take this.

On his decision to work with Skalata, Nilu says:

“I really like their hands-on approach to company building. As a solo founder, while the capital is nice, the connections and insights offered are a strong value add. Plus, the clear goals and targets we’ve established for the seed stage are really good.”

We can’t wait to work with Nilu and Nucanon - an investment that adds a bit of fantasy to our functional portfolio, but ticks all the major criteria: massive market need, leading-edge AI strategy, and a founder who started building industry expertise at the age of 8 (pretty sure that’s a portfolio first).