Jam & Tea Studios is focused on using artificial intelligence to enhance game development and is marking a new infusion of capital to fund this venture. The Westwood-based company launched in August and has already closed a $3.1 million seed funding round led by London Venture Partners, with participation from 1Up Ventures and Sisu Ventures. 

Jam & Tea is developing its first game, which is still in the early prototyping stage and does not yet have an announced name or release date. The company said it’s a multiplayer, roleplaying game that allows collaborative play. The game will have player-versus-environment design with a “butterfly” effect, meaning that players’ actions and decisions directly change the outcome of the game.

Jam & Tea was founded by J. Aaron Farr, M. Yichao and T. Carl Kwoh, who are all previous employees of Santa Monica-based Riot Games Inc. In addition to their work at Riot Games, Yichao and Kwoh worked at Phoenix Labs and Farr worked at Sawtelle-based Singularity Six. Farr, Kwoh and Yichao now serve as chief technology officer, chief executive and chief creative officer, respectively. Yichao said the company’s name is a portmanteau of JMT, the founders’ first initials, and that they felt the name captures the “friendly and warm” nature it wants its games to bring to players.

Yichao, who previously worked in entertainment and television, wrote that AI is a complicated topic right now for those in the creative field, particularly amid union strikes and as “large corporations and groups of tech enthusiasts … seem most excited at the prospect of leveraging it to replace human artists and writers.” He said AI innovations are often being pitted against creative workers, but that AI has huge potential to open up new design spaces and pathways for creative expression. 

“As AI gets better and better at producing content, the need and hunger for human ingenuity, creativity, and specificity will only increase,” Yichao said. “Writing naturalistic copy or creating a believable stock photo is very different from composing an experience across mediums that resonates yet surprises, that feels fresh yet inviting and familiar. 

Jam & Tea said its AI application and innovation are focused on the core gameplay and engine of its content, compared to other companies, which, the company claimed, are primarily looking to innovate on the “production pipeline” side. Farr said that AI can do more than just enhance productivity and that the company is leveraging it alongside its team’s background and experience in game development to produce its demo game.

“We’re keenly aware of the difference between building a demo and making a game that players can fall in love with,” Farr said. “While the technologist in me is excited for generative AI on a technical level, the game developer in me is most excited and focused on how it empowers us to deliver unforgettable, playful experiences you can share with your friends, old and new.”