Michigan State University alumni launch its first licensed video game

LANSING, Mich. (WILX) - About 5 years ago, Michigan State University video game design students and their professor thought up a new game idea.

Now, “Plunder Panic” is MSU’s first real licensed video game. The game revolves around two crews who battle on the high sea while on the lookout for pirates.

“We built a prototype of the game in the games for entertainment and learning lab at Michigan State University back in 2017 and we showed it at some conferences and expos and it won some awards and it kind of just kept coming back,” said MSU professor Brian Winn. “Like, hey, maybe we really have something nice here, something that is commercially viable”

For the past year and a half, Winn and his team - who are mostly MSU game design alumni - have been working hard to make the game go live.

“As opposed to just telling people what you’ve done, you can show them and it really brings home the hard work that you did and it feels good to be validated by people enjoying your game” said Joe Sak, an MSU alumni and game programmer.

Along with launching the video game, this team also launched a brand new video game studio right here in East Lansing.

“We don’t have a lot of industry here in Michigan, so we wanted to help foster industry and grow the industry in the area so we formed WILL WINN Games as a stepping stone for students,” Winn said. “When they graduate they can come and work for us.”

“Plunder Panic” launched this past Friday and Winn said that so far, the reviews have been positive and people are enjoying the game.

“I mean it’s really gratifying to have something that was just an inkling of an idea - to see it come to reality, to show it out to the world and build momentum and strength and ultimately form the company, and now release it to the world across all of these different platforms,” Winn said. “I’m very excited about that.”

This excitement will continue as the WILL WINN company continues to create more games in the future.

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