Video game executives open studio in West Virginia

LOGAN, WV (WOWK) — If you play “Fortnite,” chances are you’ve played on a map made in Logan County and one that has the same mountainous terrain.

PlayKigai is a fully remote global video game studio founded in Logan in January 2024.

Last month, the studio released a Fortnite map called “Dizzy Realistics,” where players can compete in a one-versus-one high-level training arena.

PlayKigai’s founders are industry veterans, including Aaron Chambers, a former employee at PlayStation and Twitch, and Simone Di Gravio, formerly of Epic Games.

Chambers is from Logan and graduated from West Virginia University. He says he moved back to Logan from California to be able to work on game development from the comfort of his home.

“A lot of people who want to be where they are, but don’t want to move to make something cool. That was the seed for something like PlayKigai. And we just ran with it,” Chambers said.

His co-founder and business partner, Simone Di Gravio, works out of Italy. He says it is his and Chambers’ dream that PlayKigai make their own video games from scratch.

“I really missed making a product that we can ship, and say I made this. I made it from start to end and I shipped it out,” said Di Gravio.

“I hope in a year or two, it won’t be just Fortnite maps,” Chambers said. “We’re starting with our strengths. In a year or two, we’ll be able to say we played lots of games made in Logan County, West Virginia.”

The studio’s next projects are also Fortnite maps, including “Backrooms Mansion” and “Ace Sniper.” The first is a horror/survival game where up to four players try to survive against waves of dark energy, and the second is a training map where players can test long-distance weapons.

By mid-to-late 2025, Chambers says they hope to be developing their own video games, in addition to their contract work.