It has been well over a year since we first looked at Glitch, a new massively multiplayer online game from Tiny Speck. At the time, they were in their very early alpha stage, but co-founder Stewart Butterfield expected a full beta to happen later in the year. Obviously, that never happened. Despite progress, Glitch remained in alpha. But next week, the game finally opens up to beta testing, Butterfield has announced today.
Also announced: Tiny Speck has raised a fresh $10.7 million Series B round from Andreessen Horowitz and Accel to spur the full-on push.
Anticipation for Glitch has been high since its inception in part because of the talent working on it. Butterfield co-founded Flickr and brought former Flickr head of engineering Cal Henderson along with him on this new project. The team had also recruited top designer Daniel Burka, who worked on the project for well over a year until his departure last week to start the new incubator Milk with former Digg alum Kevin Rose. Other Tiny Speck co-founders include Eric Costello and Serguei Mourachov.
Interestingly enough, Glitch marks a return of sorts to the idea that eventually led to Flickr: Game Neverending. That MMO had a photo-sharing aspect that eventually became the focus for Butterfield and co-founder Caterina Fake. Then Yahoo scooped them up and now it’s the Flickr we all know and love today despite Yahoo’s questionable guidance.
Butterfield notes that while beta testing is starting next week, there are still “tens of thousands” of users waiting to get access, so the roll-out will be gradual.
Along with the new funding, Andreessen Horowitz general partner John O’Farrell will join the Tiny Speck board.
Tiny Speck is the new company started by Stewart Butterfield, who previously started Flickr. Their first product is Glitch, a Flash-based massively multiplayer online game set to launch in Fall 2010.
Glitch is a massively multiplayer online game created by Tiny Speck. Its root stem back to Game Neverending, a game that eventually gave birth to Flickr, the photo-sharing service, later bought by Yahoo. Glitch is set to launch in Spring 2011.
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