Social game startup Rounds launches We The Kings game (exclusive)

Rounds, the maker of a platform that combines video chat and social apps, has launched a new web-based game that incorporates interactive music video from the band We The Kings.

In the game, users can control the actions of band members within a music video. Tel Aviv, Israel-based Rounds calls this “communitainment,” and it says the title is first of nine new games coming in 2012.

The game was created by developer Interlude as a single-player or one-on-one multiplayer title. Players who finish the game’s four levels can earn a free We The Kings song.The music video in the game is built around the band’s song Say You Like Me.

During the game, the band member avatar completes challenges as directed by the user. The user progresses through various levels and “saves the girl” in order to unlock the video.

Chief executive Danny Fishel and chief operating officer Ilan Leibovitch started the company in 2008. The company offers a web-based chat service that gives users a chance to participate in entertainment apps while they are chatting.

Interlude developers used the Rounds applications programming interface to integrate the video and game. High scores are tracked and posted on a leaderboard on the We The Kings official site, which will help get the game discovered. We The Kings is a platinum-selling band.

Fishel said the game is a “groundbreaking product that combines a compelling music video with an interactive game that really holds the viewer’s attention.” He added, “The future of interactive entertainment rests with social media and we are proud to be a driving force of this new medium.”

Rounds runs a web-based “live hangout” platform that combines real-time communications and rich applications. The free service has more than 4 million users around the world who play one million daily Rounds sessions.

Rounds’ interactive “live hangout” platform combines real-time communication and rich applications for fun face-to-face socializing online. The free service already boasts more than four million users from around the world and more than one million daily Rounds sessions. Rounds has raised $5.5 million in funding from Verizon Investments, Rhodium, Startup Factory, Gitam, Tim Draper, Zeev Bregman, Uri Shinaar, Carmel Vernia, Benny Levin and Yaron Galai.

Rounds has 23 full and part-time employees. Rounds launched a Facebook app for video chat in August of last year and it has more than 4 million users who partake in 1 million hangout sessions a day.

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.