Spacetime Gets Investment, Announces Cross-Platform Play For iOS, PC MMO

Spacetime Studios says that a new round of venture capital will help it ramp up its Spacetime Engine, the development framework for its Pocket Legends MMO, for licensing to other developers "sometime in 2011" At the same time, the company says that players of the game on iOS platforms, Android and Windows PC will be able to play Pocket Legends persistently on the same shared server set, a development it claims is "a first in the industry." Insight Venture Partners has invested an undisclosed sum in the company, which released Pocket Legends on iPhone and iPad in April of this year. Spacetime says Pocket Legends has since become the number one RPG on the iPad, and now the investment is helping it expand both the title and its general operations. The company's goal is now to "extend Spacetime‘s technology platform and pioneer new functionality for the mobile multiplayer gaming market." It'll also allocate some of the new capital to getting the Pocket Legends engine in licensing shape for other developers, claiming the tech platform and tools can enable developers to support a global userbase across different devices at once. "The Spacetime Engine offers seamless global multiplayer gameplay to anyone with an iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch over 3G, Edge, and wireless networks," says CTO and co-founder Anthony Sommers. "We plan to add Android and PC users to the mix." "In the near future, it will be possible to be on the bus in California with your iPhone, playing with someone in a park in France on their Android device, and both be playing in the same server set with someone in South Korea on their PC," Sommers continues. The Spacetime Engine, Spacetime’s 3D MMO technology platform and tools, will be available to developers sometime in 2011. The Spacetime Engine will be the first 3D MMO engine designed to support a global player-base on different devices, including mobile, interacting together in the same server-set. Adds CEO Gary Gattis: "Providing players, no matter where they are, with a single deep, seamless 3D MMO gaming experience on multiple devices has been a dream of ours since the company was founded. We feel we’re at the forefront of a whole new market for MMO game developers.”