Media Prima Labs, the tech innovation arm of Malaysia’s Media Prima has joined 1337 Venture’s idea validation program Alpha Startups to groom and validate ideas from game developers in Southeast Asia.
“We have been seeing a significant growth and great potential in the Malaysian mobile games industry whereby there is an increase in the demand for content,” explained Nicholas Sagau, the General Manager of Media Prima Labs & Operations
The program is known as the Alpha Startups: Game Edition, and is specially catered for gaming startups in order to prepare them for the necessary business and marketing skills that game founders often lack.
Serving as a launchpad for game founders to validate their idea, the program will prep startups for a crowdfunding launch, as well as grant access to networking opportunities with investors, publishers, distributors, and successful Indie Game studios from Southeast Asia.
The program will oversee teams engaging in a weekend game hackathon, to either develop games based on their own ideas or leverage on the intellectual property (IP) provided by Media Prima Labs. Top ideas will receive over MYR200,000 (about US$46,000) in funding.
Top 5 games will be selected at the end of the weekend and receive a MYR30,000 funding to further refine their game within the next month with supervision from 1337 Ventures. The refined games would then pitch again for a chance to receive an additional MYR50,000 to help teams launch their crowdfunding campaigns on Kickstarter or Indiegogo.
Meanwhile, winning teams will further receive a seed funding ranging from MYR50,000 to MYR200,000, in addition to ample media coverage which will highlight the startup’s games and journeys.
Besides, 1337 Ventures and Media Prima Labs will also be in talks with other publishers in the region that may be interested to co-invest the teams.
Some of the local Indie games that benefitted from this program include The Dreamcatcher, Agent RX, and Tell No One, among some.
On the other hand, Digi Telecommunications Sdn Bhd (Digi) will also participate in the accelerator program as an advisor to provide insights on the Malaysian gamers behavior as a consumer.
The week-long boot camp is open to game developers living in Southeast Asia and will be in Malaysia from May 29 to June 4. Aspiring game developers are invited to register at http://www.1337accelerator.com/alpha-startups/.
