GaaS (Gaming as a Service) is a new trend that has multiplied the value of the gaming industry. This trend has extended the life cycle of games and help developers achieve higher ARPU. Also, the relatively higher online video gaming trend has resulted in an increase in the amount of multilingual data assets that should be stored, managed and shared with both external and internal collaborators. This is what Gridly, the next-generation CMS for video games of Swedish localisation and software startup handles effortlessly.
What does Gridly do?
Gridly is a collaborative headless CMS for multilingual GaaS projects with its powerful API, inbuilt functions, browser-based spreadsheet UI, etc. that can handle localisatiton and frequent updates. Gridly helps to create, translate, manage, and update content in a single place. With Gridly, developers can store dialogues, in-game texts, audio, video, and image files, translations, prices and descriptions of in-app offers, and gameplay data.
Gridly was developed by ex-game developers and founders (Christoffer Nilsson and Mattias Wennerholm) of the game localisation company LocalizeDirect, which is behind LocDirect, a game localisation tool used by King, Scopely, WB Games, Square Enix, Rebellion, Capcom, and other well-known companies across the world.
Secures almost €1M funding
Swedish localisation and software company LocalizeDirect has secured an investment of SEK 10,264,530 (nearly €995k) from Entreprenörinvest, which is owned by The IKEA Family Foundation and a slew of Swedish venture capital firms and private individuals such Innovum Invest.
This investment will be channelled towards the launch and development of Gridly. Currently, the collaborative headless CMS for multilingual game projects is in the beta phase and will be released in September this year.
“The trend we’ve seen for the last few years is a shift to continuous development of games – games as a service. Instead of a one-time launch, developers now push out new content frequently, often on a weekly basis, in multiple languages. Managing game data (such as strings, IAP, gameplay variables) for agile multiplatform and multilanguage releases is time-consuming and can rapidly spiral out of control. Gridly facilitates this process, allowing the product teams to cooperate more efficiently time- and cost-wise,” said LocalizeDirect’s Managing Director Christoffer Nilsson.
Gets new board of director!
Also, the existing investor Jan Andersson, a founder and former CEO of ReadSoft (rebranded Kofax) joins the company’s Board of Directors. “The demand for agile, high-quality localization technology and services will continue to grow. It is already a key success factor in the game industry, but it is evident that the need for localization also grows fast in many other areas. LocalizeDirect is very well positioned to grow in this market and Gridly has the potential to become the preferred solution for many companies in many industries,” Jan Andersson, the Board Member of Entreprenörinvest and Innovum Invest underlines.
Main image picture credits: LocalizeDirect