Kongregate sets up $10m PC and console publishing fund

Kongregate has announced the creation of a $10m publishing fund designed to bring new PC and console games to market.

The company has historically focused on mobile and browser-based games, but has increasingly offered more traditional PC games - even expanding into Steam publishing late last year. This new fund will help ramp up its cross-platform publishing business.

VentureBeat reports the fund will be used for both free-to-play and premium titles, and while referred to us as publishing fund, Kongregate has said in may be used for investments or other kinds of partnerships.

The new fund is the result of MTG's recent acquisition, taking control of Kongregate from previous parent GameStop for $55m. In an email to VentureBeat, the company stressed that this is not a sign it is moving away from its mobile and browser-based origins, instead noting that it will increase its investment in those areas as well.

"Our mission since the founding of Kongregate has been to help independent developers succeed," said CEO Emily Greer. "We feel that it's important to look beyond mobile and browser free-to-play since there are so many developers developing for the PC and paid game markets. And like on mobile they're struggling to break through with so many games being released. That's the kind of market where a publisher really has a chance to make a difference.

"From a player perspective, we also believe that taking games to as many platforms as possible is good: Let them play games wherever they prefer, whether it's mobile, Kongregate.com, Steam, consoles, or some place else. We frequently see benefits on existing platforms when we release a game somewhere else, whether it's mobile to browser, browser to Steam, Steam to mobile, and so forth."

Kongregate recently said it believed HTML5 games can now "compete toe-to-toe with plugins", further demonstrating its faith in web games.