This studio wants to turn Northern Virginia into video game powerhouse  

Maryland is a well known video game development hub, and a group of founders are working to make nearby Northern Virginia a core part of the industry. 

Venture-backed Loric Games in Arlington is in the process of creating its first product. Dubbed Echoes of Elysium, it’s a survival-focused game about creating customizable airships — with a Greek mythology throughline. 

The company’s four cofounders hail from Mythic Entertainment, a Fairfax studio that shut down in 2014, and it’s staffed with people who’ve helped build blockbusters like Fallout and Warhammer, said CEO and cofounder Brian Johnson.

“We’re all passionate about what we’ve done and are doing,” Johnson told Technical.ly. “We’ve all built large games. It’s all about getting back to the root of game development.”

That means focusing on narrative and innovating in small teams, he said. Loric currently has 15 employees, all remote, with half being in the Northern Virginia area. 

“We want to build a game development community here,” added cofounder and lead producer Ray Soto. 

Currently, there’s not a lot of opportunity for in-state work in Virginia, per Johnson, which is one reason he’s begun working with George Mason University’s game design program. 

“We do all this great work of training these people how to be great game designers and developers,” he said, “and then we immediately ship them to Maryland, almost instantly, or ship them to New York or California, as opposed to really investing here and keeping that talent here.”

Navigating uncertain times in gaming 

Loric Games has received $6 million in venture capital, primarily from HIRO Capital and 1AM Gaming, with participation from local angel group New Dominion Angels and other investors. 

That backing provides some stability as layoffs surge in the video game industry. Rockville, Maryland, video game developer ZeniMax, owned by Microsoft, is laying off close to 200 people — half of its workforce — effective at the start of September. That’s not an outlier: 1 in 10 developers were laid off last year, per a report by the Game Developers Conference.

While unionizing doesn’t prevent layoffs, Bethesda Game Studios, a studio with locations in Texas and Maryland housed under ZeniMax, recently formed a Microsoft-recognized worker union to advocate for better benefits and flexibility in remote work. 

Why are so many game developers losing their jobs? CEO Johnson believes it’s a combination of rising costs of employment while consumer prices remain stagnant. At the same time, more games are being released because of technological advancements making development easier, meaning more competition, he explained. 

But Johnson believes Loric is finding ways around this. The team is small, and they are building the base of the platform with the $6 million. Plus, they are working with a publisher called Snail Games for the first couple of titles, which they hope will open up the game to a wider audience. 

“We’re trying to use the venture capital money to set us up to survive more long term, so that we can iterate on our products and become the next Bethesda,” he said. 

Plans for spinning out studios 

Once flagship game Echoes of Elysium is released later this year, the priority is to start iterating on the narrative and start building future games and a fan base, per studio producer Soto. 

Loric Games wants to keep the studio small, but scale at the same time, per Johnson, so the plan is to establish a network of compact studios focusing on different genres. 

Because the startup is taking the time to build a base platform and will focus on continuing narratives, Johnson plans for releases more frequently than the average game firm — the goal is yearly or monthly releases, instead of waiting multiple years. 

He’s aiming to create a “social experience,” for players as well as the developers building the games.

“One of the things that we did miss, and that COVID did take from us, was building games together,” Johnson said. “And playing games together. Yes, we do remotely and online, but also getting together and enjoying the experience and building community and friendship throughout it, and that’s something we’re really aiming to do.”