Video Ate the Internet. Now Games Are Coming for Video.

01 /The Concept

Roam is building what it calls the "first truly social gaming app" – or, in its own words, "TikTok for games."

The social layer is the real play here: users can play games created by their favorite creators – and create games themselves, becoming creators in a format that didn't exist before.

The creation mechanism is what makes this possible. Users describe what they want – the plot, what happens in the game, how the environment and characters should look, and other details – and the platform's AI generates a playable game from that description. From there, the game can be tuned by adjusting parameters and selecting from options to refine gameplay mechanics.

The startup claims its AI and "intuitive interface" make it possible to build a game in 15 minutes or less.

Creators can add their own branding, copy, images, and music. The most interesting monetization angle is advertising: games can contain banner ads or embedded marketplaces where creators (or their advertisers) sell products. The games themselves can be made free or paid at the creator's discretion.

Creating games is free. Roam takes a 10% commission on creator earnings – from paid games, ad placements, and in-game item or product sales.

Every game gets a unique link that creators can share on social platforms to drive their audiences into Roam. Those visitors must register to play – and may start creating their own games.

Roam has already secured licensing agreements with 70 IP holders, meaning creators can incorporate characters including Rick and Morty and Tom and Jerry into their games.

The platform is currently in early access by invitation only. Roam is already working with creators who collectively have over 138 million followers.

Funding information has been ambiguous – a $5M round announcement appeared and then disappeared. But if the founders actually get the platform off the ground, funding won't be the problem.

02 /Why It Matters

Games could turn out to be a more powerful creator format than short-form video.

A single session with a game can hold a user's attention for 12 to 40 times longer than a short video. For creators, that means deeper engagement with their audience and significantly more monetization surface inside a single interaction.

There's a less obvious but structurally important detail in Roam's design: the platform is built for multiplayer. To play, a user either needs to find other available users on the platform or invite friends. At first glance that sounds like a constraint. In practice it's a built-in virality mechanism – every user becomes a regular activation lever for other users and a recruiting channel for new ones.

Yes, playing a game requires more from a user than passively scrolling a video feed – you have to actually do something. But the audience is enormous: 2.6 billion people played games in 2024, with that figure expected to reach 3 billion by 2029.

The constraint on this market has never been demand – it's been supply. Creating quality games is hard, slow, and expensive. That's what's starting to change. AI can substantially reduce the cost and timeline of game creation, and the conversation about single-person game studios has been happening since the first capable generation models appeared.

Carrying that thought further: why should that solo creator be a "game studio" at all, rather than an influencer who has simply found a new way to engage their audience and monetize attention?

The parallel to video content is hard to miss. Professional film and TV studios used to be the only game in town. Then cameras got cheaper, editing got easier, distribution platforms appeared, and the whole thing accelerated into what we have now: anyone with a smartphone can publish video, and billions of people spend their free time watching it.

Games today look like video circa 2005 – expensive to produce, limited to professionals. What happens when anyone with a smartphone can create and publish a game?

03 /Opportunities

Games are a more compelling creator format than video – better retention, more monetization options. The moment AI tooling makes game creation as fast and accessible as video production, creators will move there.

It's worth noting that AI doesn't pose an existential threat to professional game studios. AAA-level content will always have an audience, and it can't be assembled by one person with a prompt. That parallels the video story: blockbusters and prestige series didn't disappear when YouTube appeared. They coexist with a massive parallel market of user-generated content.

"Amateur" games will similarly create a parallel market – one that competes not with professionally developed games, but with the user-generated video content market.

The direction: AI-powered platforms and tools for user-generated games. These don't need to match the quality of AAA studios – they need to be roughly as accessible as producing decent amateur video. And the first target audience is clear: creators who are already producing quality video content for their audiences and want to get ahead of the next format shift.

If you've ever felt you missed the window to be in the right place with the right product during the explosive growth of user-generated video – that window is opening again, now, for user-generated games.