In my role at Tech.eu, I sometimes step out of my comfort zone to chase stories. Take gaming. As someone visually challenged, it is not a pursuit I’ve really considered since I was a kid. 

However, a mixed reality gaming company I met at the last Web Summit might have changed my mind. 

Irish startup MixRift creates Mixed Reality (MR) games for Meta Quest and Apple Vision Pro. Before I dig into the business, I had to give one a whirl.

The joy of quick-play MR games

I sat with Bobby Voicu, MixRift’s CEO, in a meeting room in Lisbon, and played Hell Horde: a MR survival game.

A portal opened in front of me, gushing a hoard of monsters that I needed to defend myself again. The controllers became guns, and the more you succeed, the weapons get stronger.  If the monsters touch you, it’s game over. The game uses special software tools called Presence Platform SDKs to make the game feel realistic and immersive.

As someone obsessed with horror films, this game was FUN. And as someone with constant blurry vision, I find Mixed Reality a lot easier than other mediums.

If the idea of a horde of monsters is the stuff of nightmares for you, the company has since released the more family friendly Crit Attack, where the monsters are cute and annoying rather than scary.

Both games are classic arcade shooters at heart. They’re incredibly easy to jump into: grab a controller, aim your in-game weapons at the invading monsters, and start blasting. Even the “Play” button is interactive – shoot it to begin the mayhem.

A vision for casual gaming

Founded in 2024 by Bobby Voicu, David Pripas and Andrei Vaduva, MixRift is focused on creating casual gaming sessions with a retro bent lasting just 30 minutes or less, making them ideal for quick pick-up-and-play experiences.

MixRift’s unique approach is centred on game mechanics, developing and releasing games that resonate with audiences, quickly rather than investing years in a single title.

Bobby Voicu previously co-founded and served as CEO of Mavenhut, a mobile gaming company that was successfully acquired — in 2015, Mavenhut sold a significant portion of its game portfolio to RockYou.  

The MixRift team is composed mainly of former Mavenhut employees, with six out of seven members having prior experience at the company. Voicu mentioned that in late 2023, a former Mavenhut employee suggested he explore wearable devices, particularly the Meta Quest 3. I wasn’t interested due to past experiences with VR-induced motion sickness. But I discovered that the hardware has improved drastically.”

The opportunity for wearables and MR

Voicu believes that, with wearables that are as much computing devices as they are gaming, mixed reality will appeal to a wider set of users.

The most popular gaming devices worldwide are not dedicated gaming devices. . It’s the phone and then the PC. They are computing platforms.

People use them for other things, and then they game on it. And in my opinion, we’re at the dawn of the third computing device. Which is mixed reality glasses. The headset is like an intermediate step, but we’re going to have mass adoption of these devices when it’s in that form.

There’s a big opportunity for a gaming company, especially a small and quick indie company, to conquer the space. 

“We’re creating games for a software platform at the edge of technology. It changes consistently. If you think of a smartphone, it’s like building games for the phones three years before the iPhone.

We’re building games for a constantly evolving software platform, akin to developing for smartphones before the iPhone standardised the industry.”

However, the rapid pace of technological advancement within this space presents ongoing hurdles. New features and updates are frequent, requiring developers to adjust their approach and address unforeseen issues constantly.

But there’s a lot of benefit in being an early player in an emerging market.Voicu asserts:

 “While the demand for MR experiences continues to grow, primarily driven by tech giants like Meta and Apple, there’s a clear lack of high-quality MR games out there. 

We’re in the perfect position to tackle this because we’re pushing boundaries to create new kinds of interactive experiences”

An agile approach to prototyping driven by user feedback

MixRift is a small distributed company. To identify promising titles, the company embraces an agile approach. 

It rapidly prototypes game ideas and launches minimal viable products (MVPs) within weeks. This allows it to gather early player feedback and iterate quickly.

Voicu shared: 

For example, we prototyped a simple competitive mechanic and, despite its basic nature (essentially just shooting at things), it attracted thousands of organic users within two months.

This contrasts with the traditional console development cycle, which often involves years of secretive development. We believe in transparency and learning from player feedback early on, enabling us to quickly identify what resonates with players and refine our game designs at speed.”

Voicu asserts that gaming is not a zero-sum game. “If somebody plays my game, that doesn’t mean they won’t play anything else.”

Gamers generally have either the time or the money to invest in games. 

“In our game, players can earn in-game currency, often by performing actions like defeating enemies.

While dedicated players can earn these coins through gameplay, others with limited time (e.g., those with busy schedules after work and family commitments) may be more inclined to spend money to progress more quickly.”

A conversion rate of 3-5 per cent of users making in-game purchases is considered healthy for most free-to-play games. This demonstrates the significant potential for monetisation, even with a relatively small percentage of players actively spending.

Success stories in indie VR/AR gaming land with acquisition

Large gaming companies traditionally enter mobile gaming cautiously. For example, Ubisoft’s ‘Assassin’s Creed Nexus,‘ a VR-exclusive title, faced underwhelming success, leading them to announce a hiatus from VR development for the next 3-5 years. This reluctance stems from the perceived small market size, creating a significant opportunity for smaller, more specialised companies like ours.

Instead of investing heavily in internal VR development, historically these giants often prefer to acquire indie game studios instead of developing in house. For example, Activision acquired UK-Stockholm gaming company King, maker of Candy Crush) for $5.9 billion —Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard in October 2023 for $69 billion.

Indie game developers continue to make a place for themselves in the VR/AR space gaining audiences. For example, Gorilla Tag, a multiplayer VR game developed by Another Axiom in 2021 has generated over $100 million in revenue.

In its earliest stages, MixRift raised £1.6 million in August 2024, primarily directed towards accelerating its game development efforts. 

Voicu believes successful VR/AR gaming hinges on experiences that are uniquely possible in immersive and MR environments. 

“For example, games like Gorilla Tag demonstrate this through locomotion, emphasising physical movement and spatial awareness – ‘native‘ mechanics impossible on traditional platforms. He admits. “The first time I tried it I fell on my face.”

But beyond that, when it comes to MR, smart glasses have the potential to seamlessly blend the digital and physical worlds, transforming gaming into an immersive and interactive experience that integrates with our reality.

The company’s additional games are available on Apple Vision Pro and the Meta Quest. In-app purchases like upgrades and extra ‘lives‘ are available to make the most out of the playing session, but players can also win these by playing the game for longer.