Capitalising on the rise of gaming which has been accelerated by the pandemic and substantially more time spent in front of screens, game developer Mighty Kingdom (ASX: MKL) has expanded its partnership with East Side Games Group for future collaborations.

The extension comes after the two have been working on a new Sci-Fi franchise game which will be announced more formally soon. The title of the game is yet to be disclosed but Mighty Kingdom has confirmed that it is based on “a popular legacy science-fiction franchise”.

The collaboration draws on East Side Games Group’s (ESCG) proprietary Game Kit technology which gives the player a story-rich experience. Coupled with Mighty Kingdom’s narrative expertise, the partners have completed all initial development work under their co-development agreement which has more details of the game on track to be announced in early 2022 when alpha testing commences.

Under the terms of the partnership extension, Mighty Kingdom and ESCG will work together on an additional three games for worldwide release.

“Our work with East Side Games has been fantastic thus far, and we’re excited to strengthen our relationship with additional co-development contracts,” said Mighty Kingdom Managing Director, Phillip Mayes.

“Between our combined pools of creativity, experience, and technology, we know that with East Side Games, we’ll deliver rich experiences to players for years to come – both original stories and well-known universes.”

Financials relating to the partnership extension were not disclosed due to confidentiality obligations however Mighty Kingdom expects top line revenue from the deal to be material.

Darcy Taylor, CEO of East Side Games, said “Having Australia’s largest independent game developer join us for an additional three games speaks volumes about our platform. We couldn’t be more excited to expand our relationship with Mighty Kingdom and can’t wait to see the finished product!”

Since listing on the ASX in April 2021 following their $18 million IPO at an Offer Price of $0.30 per share, the Company has been actively targeting larger projects both from development of their own IP as well as their work-for-hire model which collaborates with other game developers.

This resulted in Mighty Kingdom reporting $6.13m in revenue for FY21 which represented a 42% increase on the previous year. Some of their most popular titles include Lego Friends, Shopkins, Wildlife and Ava’s Manor while they are expected to also launch their original IP title Ball Stars before the end of July. The game is a multiplayer racing game, similar to the old school Iggy’s Reckin’ Balls game of yesteryear.

Mighty Kingdom currently has a Share Purchase Plan open to eligible shareholders that can purchase additional shares for $0.145 each. The SPP comes after the Company raised $4 million at the same Offer Price last month to institutional investors.

Newzoo Global Games estimates that there are more than 2.7 billion gamers around the world which contributed USD $159 billion to the gaming industry in 2021, a figure tipped to reach $201 billion by 2023.