Game veteran Taehoon Kim‘s Spekter Games has raised a $5 million round of funding to make Spekter Agency, a rogue-lite game on Telegram.
The game is the first-ever Web3 roguelite on Telegram. That marks a clear break from last year’s wave of clicker and farming games. Instead, it delivers arcade-style, Vampire Survivors–inspired gameplay that’s actually fun—blockchain elements included, but tucked neatly under the hood, said Kim in an interview with GamesBeat.
Kim is a veteran and serial entrepreneur who brings over 20 years of experience in the gaming industry with multiple exited startups. At his previous company, nWay, Kim led the development of real-time, cross-play multiplayer hits such as Power Rangers: Legacy Wars, and Battle for the Grid, amassing over 100 million downloads.
The round saw participation from prominent investment firms including A16z Speedrun, London Venture Partners, BRV Capital, Accelerator Ventures, Versus Ventures, and Alumni Ventures.
The funding coincides with today’s official launch of Spekter Games’ first title, Spekter Agency, a rogue-lite action game debuting on Telegram. Inspired by breakout hits like Vampire Survivors, Spekter Agency offers addictive, arcade-style gameplay tailored for mainstream audiences, seamlessly integrating passive blockchain rewards without the complexity traditionally associated with Web3 gaming.
Spark Link in Spekter Agency.
“We’re building games that players love for the gameplay, not just the rewards,” said Kim (TK). “Web3 incentives can supercharge retention and virality, but they have to stay out of the way of the fun. By keeping these systems passive and behind the scenes, we’re proving it’s possible to bring Web3-enhanced games to the mainstream gamers without compromising gameplay.”
Leveraging Telegram’s massive platform of over a billion monthly active users, Spekter Agency utilizes Telegram’s Mini Apps infrastructure, offering frictionless onboarding and instant, native gameplay. Telegram’s built-in wallet capabilities further simplify crypto transactions, drastically reducing the barriers traditionally associated with blockchain gaming and opening it up to a mainstream audience.
“We believe there is a real opportunity to improve the early tap-to-earn games on Telegram with deep mechanics that resonate with real gamers,” said Robin Guo, investment partner at A16z Speedrun. “We’re thrilled to back TK and his seasoned team as they push the boundaries of what’s possible in gaming on chat-based super apps.”
Expanding to super app platforms
The funds raised will enable Spekter Games to scale Spekter Agency across additional platforms, including other chat-based super apps and traditional mobile stores like the App Store and Google Play. Additionally, the capital will support the ongoing development of the publisher’s second game, already underway.
Origins
nWay was acquired by Animoca Brands, where Kim stayed on to lead Web3 gaming initiative in collaboration with partners like Yuga Labs and Dapper Labs. He stayed three years and tried to get the mech game Wreck League off the ground with a hybrid Web2/Web3 model. But it didn’t succeed. To play, many gamers had to purchase a non-fungible token and invest time in the game — something that mainstream players weren’t so interested in. It also had high gas fees, or transaction costs.
“The game was very good, but there was a lot of friction,” Kim said.
And that stopped Wreck League from taking off.
“There are a lot of cool projects at Animoca,” Kim said. “I stayed three years there. I saw Web3 elements can supercharge retention, virality and monetization. But I also so that no games were able to break out into the mainstream and that was something I really wanted to achieve. We tried a lot of things, but we couldn’t do it.”
He left the company at the end of 2023 and took a year off.
Then he started watching Telegram, with early Web3 games like Hamster Kombat. These were chat-based super apps that debuted on platforms like Telegram, Line and Kakao.
Trying a new approach on Telegram
Kim and the Spekter team bring deep expertise in both Web2 and Web3 game development, uniquely positioning them to build games that seamlessly bridge both worlds for mainstream adoption.
“They were evolving super-fast into something that can handle both Web2 and Web3. Telegram especially, can do both, because they’d have seamless payments through those Telegram Stars that are connected to Apple Pay and Google. And then they would also have a wallet that’s integrated. So they were doing with mini apps where people could instantly launch games on Telegram,” Kim said.
With advances in WebGL with Unity 6, there are technologies that can help Web2/Web3 hybrid games take off on these emerging platforms.
“I decided to start Spekter Games in the fall of last year to try to tackle this issue, where I still wanted the Web3 elements to be innovative, so the games can benefit from that, but make it very seamless and in the background and focus on delivering a really fun game.”
Going after mainstream gamers
Going after the mainstream, Kim wants to be a publisher that can reach real mainstream gamers as well as the existing Web3 community. In the game, you have to survive the webs of companies and then kill the boss.
“My experience during the last few years in terms of why Web3 games have not gone mainstream is friction. People don’t know how to use wallets. It’s very difficult to connect wallets to games, and then it makes a clunky experience. And No. 2 problem is Web3 games are too heavily skewed” toward games that weren’t fun to play, Kim said.
“This time I want to make sure that we’re bringing full-blown Web2 free-to-play games to players. They can still be playing on these super apps, and then have all the Web3 elements to pass it in the background. You don’t have to have tokens to play. Anybody can just play. But if you want to in the game, then you’re rewarded with blockchain items. There are vanity items like skins and things like that which make them super cool to get,” Kim said.
Some games have succeeded with this kind of approach. Mythical Games’ NFL Rivals has had more than seven million downloads thanks to its free-to-play Web2 mobile game design. But if players want, they can go to Mythical’s site and trade items using Web3 enhancements.
“I think that’s going to be the future. That’s going to be important because it’s very difficult to otherwise get mainstream gamers,” Kim said. “If you have to have a $500 NFT to start playing, that’s not good. In our game, it is instantly playable on Telegram, with no download required. User acquisition is still very expensive and harder than ever, so we need some innovation.”
He added, “Being able to combine Web3 incentives so if you invite friends and you get some points or tokens,” players can invite friends to join them in the game. If those players do well, then the one who invited them can get more points. It’s like a double-layer system, Kim said.
The Spekter Agency is a rogue-lite game like Survivor.io, and it’s steering away from traditional Web3.
“We don’t want another tap-to-earn game,” Kim said. “That didn’t work out very well. They couldn’t get real gamers. But rogue-lite games are easy for anyone to play. I think these games are a perfect fit and they monetize really well.”
And while some game studios are having a hard time raising money, Kim said, “This was the easiest fundraising I have ever done. It was the fastest and the easiest.”
The roadmap
The company will be doing its beta test at the end of June. By September, the full game could launch.
Kim worries that many games on Telegram fall into familiar traps in Web3 games, where 80% of the people are there to play to earn money and are not there to play because they love the game.
“That needs to be flipped around, and it requires a really good game,” he said. “The next generation of games that will be coming out on Telegram are going to be games like ours, where it’s a real game, but with Web3 three elements that are more on the passive side.”
In closing, Kim said, “These super apps are evolving fast with new features coming out. We’ll see if gamers can adopt these apps and see how powerful their virtal features become over time. The Web2/Web3 hybrid model will have the Web3 elements in the background.”