Many of the successful online games for kids — from Club Penguin to Neopets — are appealing to girls. But Webcarzz is going after the boys with its new car-themed online video game world.
The San Francisco company has raised $4 million in a first round of funding from Meakem Becker Venture Capital to create a Flash-based online game with 3-D graphics. The company has five employees and is jointly developing the game — dubbed a massively multiplayer online world, where thousands of players can congregate at the same time — along with development house MCS Games.
Chris Bergstresser, chief executive of Webcarzz, said that the company has figured out a way to make a graphically appealing game in Flash, which typically isn’t used for high-end graphics. He said the company isn’t describing the game for a few more weeks. It is expected to be available as a beta in the fourth quarter.
Bergstresser said that broadband proliferation is so deep now that online games can be much more successful compared to traditional games sold in stores. While the company faces a ton of competition in Flash-based MMOs, such as Gaia Online’s new MMO, Berstresser hopes that focus on fun game play and the market for boys will help the company set itself apart. Berstresser, a game veteran who worked at Atari and Konami, started the company in 2007.