In late 2021, YouTube streamer Dr Disrespect announced that he had launched his own game development studio named Midnight Society. Befitting Dr Disrespect, the first game from Midnight Society is already controversial due to its confirmation of NFTs. The conversation around Midnight Society has led other streamers to think about what they'd do with their own game studio. Twitch streamer Shroud is one such example. Shroud says he's thought about the possibility of investing in a game studio before.
Shroud describes opening a game development studio as a personal "dream" of his. It's not so much that Shroud wants to own and run a game development business. He's rather content on Twitch. He simply has an idea for a game that he'd like to see be made one day. Fans probably shouldn't expect Shroud to turn to game development any time soon, but never say never.
As for what kind of game Shroud would make, it's perhaps unsurprising that his idea is intended for the most hardcore of hardcore survival game players. The core conceit is that characters within the survival game have a limited lifespan. They're born into the game, live their lives, and after a week or so they die. Shroud says that the game would demand a "time commitment' from players and that it would have a massive scale. He doesn't provide any specific examples of survival games that have similar ideas, so it's difficult to imagine exactly what Shroud's idea would be like.
The other core feature of Shroud's survival game that makes it interesting is that it has a unique death mechanic. When players die, which as noted earlier, happens to every player within a week, they're locked out of the game for as much as four days. It isn't clear why this mechanic is important to the game, but it's certainly unique.
This isn't the first time that Shroud has talked about having a dream of making games. There's a clip of him from a 2020 stream where he's talking about Vin Diesel's involvement in the development of Studio Wildcard's Ark 2. Shroud mentions that it's his dream to make a game but that it would take significantly more money than he has. Shroud's certainly had a lot of success since then, so perhaps the financials make more sense now. If Dr Disrespect can manage it, after all, it seems Shroud could as well.
For the time being, Shroud's not going to be launching a game studio any time soon. Still, he clearly has some interesting ideas for game development. Ideas that have grown over the years. Perhaps Shroud will start to consider making his game a reality in a more realistic fashion soon as Twitch is certainly an excellent platform to draw attention to the project.