Rift Maker Trion Worlds Considers Going Public

Redwood City-based MMO developer and operator Trion Worlds, a company that has raised over $100M in venture capital, may soon file for an initial public offering. "As we build scale and become more profitable, [an IPO] is clearly on our horizon at some point," CEO Lars Buttler told Reuters. "We've had a lot of bankers coming to us recently. We keep all of our options open at this point. We definitely have enough substance and enough skill to be a public company at the right time." The $100 million in VC that the company has raised so far includes contributions from such well-known companies as Time Warner, Comcast, and Fidelity. Rift, the company's first game, is "vastly profitable," according to Buttler. "It is profitable every single week and every single month," he said, though he did not disclose figures. Buttler recently spoke with Gamasutra about the company's Red Door initiative, a software platform for third-party developers that the company has already invested tens of millions into developing.