Vinci Games

Vinci Games is a virtual reality game studio founded in 2021 and based in San Francisco, with a globally distributed team. It participated in Y Combinator's Summer 2022 batch and describes its focus as social multiplayer VR games for headset platforms such as Meta Quest, Pico and Steam VR.

The studio's first title, Blacktop Hoops, is an arcade streetball basketball game featuring dribbling, dunking and shooting mechanics designed for VR, a career/campaign mode with 12 streetball legends across courts in Oakland, Los Angeles, New York and Athens, casual and ranked 1v1 to 4v4 multiplayer with skill-based matchmaking, and an avatar system with more than 600 customization items. It launched out of beta in May 2024 on Meta Quest, Pico and Steam at $29.99. The studio's second title, Ruffnauts, is a free-to-play VR game combining creature catching, physics-driven chaos and Gorilla Tag-style locomotion, released in alpha early access on Meta Quest in 2025. Ruffnauts content is organized around explorable planets and seasonal drops, including a Pawlidays planet with seasonal creatures, gadgets, cosmetics and bundles.

Founding story

Nathaniel Ventura and Maciej Szcześnik started Vinci Games in 2021. Ventura, the CEO, previously led developer programs at Oculus, Facebook, Google and Unity and oversees product, marketing and business development. Szcześnik, the CTO, studied physics and computer science, began his game development career in 2004, was lead gameplay designer on The Witcher 1, 2 and 3 at CD Projekt Red and lead designer at 11 Bit Studios, served as Vice-Rector and authored a video game development course at Warsaw Film School, began working on VR in 2015 and won the Unity Neon Challenge in 2018.

Business model

The studio publishes VR games directly on consumer headset storefronts. Blacktop Hoops is sold as a premium title at $29.99 with downloadable content such as the Rising Legends Pack, while Ruffnauts is free-to-play with in-app purchases including cosmetic bundles and gadgets, supported by ongoing live content drops.

Revenue comes from premium game sales on Meta Quest, Pico and Steam, downloadable content packs, and in-app purchases of cosmetics, gadgets and bundles in the free-to-play Ruffnauts.

Traction

Blacktop Hoops accumulated over 9,000 reviews at a 4.9 rating as the second most popular App Lab title with a 90% positive Steam rating by its April 2023 beta, and more than 16,000 reviews and over 1 million players across Steam and Quest before its full launch. Ruffnauts recorded more than 30,000 reviews at 4.9 stars in its first month of alpha early access on Meta Quest.

Latest developments

Ruffnauts is being expanded with seasonal content, including the Ruffnauts: Pawlidays planet with seasonal creatures, gadgets and cosmetics, promoted alongside a limited-time Yeti bundle. The company has been hiring senior technical art, 3D art and world/level design roles for social VR work in San Francisco and remotely in the United States.