After QuizUp and Trivia Royale, Thor Fridriksson’s next act is a mobile MMO

techcrunch.com:

QuizUp founder Thor Fridriksson is at it again. The Icelandic serial entrepreneur is two-for-two in creating viral mobile games, but has thus far struck out in turning those into viable businesses.

Today, he’s (kind of) coming out of stealth to announce his third attempt: Rocky Road.

Rocky Road, named for Fridriksson’s entrepreneurial journey, is a casual open world mobile game. Yes, a casual MMO for mobile.

Fridriksson isn’t getting into the weeds on the details of the game — launch is still about a year away — but one thing we do know is that it’s based on real-world map data.

The general premise is that players enter the game and travel around in the real world, rather than the fantasy worlds most MMOs are based on, and play mini games on their own, with others, or with friends within that world.

The key is balance: Rocky Road aims to ensure that the games-within-the-game are casual enough for mobile but that the progression within the overall world is compelling enough to have staying power.

It’s an ambitious project, but not the first of its kind. It’s an interesting blend of already popular mobile games like Pokemon Go and Genshin Impact, with a goal to eventually hit 1 billion players.

Fridriksson has been on quite the entrepreneurial journey over the last 10+ years. He founded QuizUp, which was a viral sensation that nearly franchised itself into a NBC show before the whole thing fell through. The game itself was a hit, and at one point was the fastest growing iPhone game in history.

The future (and past) of mobile gaming

But monetization was an issue. Fridriksson didn’t believe in pumping the product full of ugly interstitial ads, and was rather more intrigued by native ads where brands could launch their own quizzes on