Anyone familiar with retro game communities, charity events like Games Done Quick, or FromSoftware challenge runs should likewise be familiar with randomizers, which shake up elements like item or enemy placement to revitalize an experience for those on their umpteenth run of titles like The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. The Twitch-based application Crowd Control has been part of that conversation since 2018, and today fans can officially access the open beta for Crowd Control 2.0.Warp World CEO Matthew "Jaku" Jakubowski describes Crowd Control as "a new way that viewers, streamers, and gamers in general can interact and experience games," offering an experience where stream viewers can donate to cause various effects that may help or hinder the player. This next stage opens the software up to a variety of platforms, alongside changes to UI, payment structure, and more in an effort to improve the user experience and drive adoption. Game Rant spoke to Jaku about the history of Warp World and how Crowd Control 2.0 is shaking up its game-changing program.
Coming Full Circle on Gaming
Jaku grew up loving video games, particularly modding and emulation in the late 1990s. "I made ROM hacks before it was cool using tools people built, modifying hex values myself," he said. However, "I figured there was no way people could get a job doing it," and this led him to Information Security (InfoSec) - a field where the same skills and concepts applied. He worked his way up from a Network Administrator at Dunn Solutions Group in 2005 to Director of Cyber Security at Uptake in 2016, but never lost his hobby.
In fact, he said one reason he has been able to come full circle is because of how much more advanced and interconnected games are. Jaku gained some online notoriety in 2015 as the first in the world to beat Super Mario Maker level "P-Break," created by speedrunner and ROM hack creator Alex "PangaeaPanga" Tan.
Despite having a Twitch account since its Justin.tv days, Jaku never found a community until then. As he ingrained himself in the world of Mario Maker, he saw streamers had no convenient means of logging, sorting, and playing through viewer-submitted levels. Inspired by his InfoSec experience, Jaku used Nintendo's Super Mario Maker Bookmark site (closed in 2021) to create a queuing software that validates codes. "This took the downtime from two minutes on average to 10 seconds." Receiving his Twitch partnership within a year, Jaku also founded Warp World to continue experimenting with streamer tools.
The Origins of Crowd Control
Warp World's first products were Multi-Queue, which grew out of its Mario Maker roots to support multiple titles; and 1UpCoin, a cryptocurrency donation platform for streamers to "safely" receive alerts. In 2018, Jaku began commentating on CPU-driven Mario Party games and thought, "What if the chat could influence that AI by cheering?" He tested this idea through an alpha called "BitLands" built around Borderlands 2, with which users could "cause chaos" both positive and negative.
Jaku reached out to Alexis "KatDevsGames" Hellstrom, who was working on a similar idea using Twitch Bits with retro games, and she became the first Warp World employee. Together, they launched Crowd Control 1.0 in October 2018 with three games: A Link to the Past, Super Mario Bros. 3, and Super Mario World.
"I quit my InfoSec job in the first quarter of 2020 because I saw my hobby turning into something more and thought the only way to continue growing it was to go in full-time. I thought I wasn't going to make anything in the gaming space in 2015, 2016 ... So it's super exciting to be part of the gaming community and have some influence on it, however minor it might be."
There were growing pains like a "horrible" user interface that they know "never should have launched." But Warp World is now around 10 people, and Crowd Control supports over 110 games even as the startup has poured time into projects like Animal Crossing: New Horizons support tool Turnip Exchange. As interactive livestreams grow, Warp World has been pushing to bring Crowd Control to more games; "we saw ourselves in a unique position where we have the technology." That includes working with all manner of creators and genres, be they community devs, indie studios, or established names (Jaku hopes to get a AAA game developer on board "soon").
"We help them out with whatever we can, because for us to go from three to 100 games has taken us four years as a team. For us to go from 100 to 1,000 games, we need the support of developers."
What Crowd Control 2.0 Brings to the Table
A driver behind Crowd Control 2.0 is helping developers not feel "trapped" by expanding to more than just Twitch. Crowd Control was built using Twitch extensions because it "remains the only streaming platform that allows an interactive tool to be displayed on top of the video player," what Jaku feels is one of its "best sleeping features." When Crowd Control 2.0 was announced on January 20, its closed beta sign-up page teased multi-platform connectivity with YouTube, TikTok Live, Facebook Gaming, Discord, and "any platform you want."
"We want to not only empower creators on all platforms, but also allow developers to feel proud of what they're doing and not worry about making their target audiences smaller."
This rewrite was easier by virtue of Crowd Control using a Bits-to-Coins conversion system from the start, offering viewers a way to be refunded if their effects failed. Crowd Control 2.0 now uses a two-pronged payment system: Channel Coins primarily for Twitch, ensuring that a streamer is paid when Bits are exchanged on that channel, and Global Coins that can be spent on any channel and pay off at the time of use.
At 2.0's launch, Warp World retains a 20 percent revenue split for both Coin buckets. However, there are talks of creating more flexible pay structures for those who work through Crowd Control's new partnership program, and invite-only "ambassador" streamers. Ambassadors even helped test Global Coins before the closed beta period. Warp World has also been working with fan feedback garnered through reviews, customer support requests, and employee playtesting to iterate on elements like UI and a new web application.
Following today's open beta launch, a full release is planned to coincide with the sunsetting of Crowd Control 1.0 on June 1. While Jaku is naturally excited to see more games added with "platform independence" going forward (though some platforms may offer different effects), there are larger plans in the works. One that Warp World is keeping under wraps is a way to bring interactivity outside the realm of live streams and events. "With everything we're building, I think we're setting ourselves up to be a lot more flexible and build in features quicker than we used to."
Crowd Control 2.0's open beta is available now, with a full release planned for June 1, 2023.