User-generated content platform YAHAHA has announced that it is now in beta mode, following a year-long early access period.

Yahaha Studios was founded in 2020 by Unity veterans Chris Zhu, Pengfei Zhang, and Hao Min, and is headquartered in Finland, with additional offices in China and South Korea. The company offers no-code creation tools to help developers take their creations to the next level.

Among the new features is the Power Up Plan, which offers a game publishing service and new monetisation avenues.

Additionally, the beta launch includes improvements to the platform’s proprietary DOD engine, including improved visual effects to support a variety of art styles, quicker rendering speeds, the introduction of swimming, shooting, and vehicles, and enhanced multiplayer gaming capabilities allowing for groups of up to 100 people to play together.

The future of game development?

“By offering our rapidly growing community of creators a suite of tools that cater to their needs, we are doubling down on our support of them as a key component to the platform as a whole and to the culture of our company,” said Yahaha Studios CEO Chris Zhu. “This is just the first step of many, and with a stream of functions and feature releases on the horizon, now is the perfect time to unleash your creativity with YAHAHA.”

Yahaha may be a relative newcomer to the games space, but it has quickly made a notable name for itself, announcing partnerships with the likes of CGTrader. May 2023 saw Yahaha Studios host 110 jammers as part of the annual Global Game Jam, who between them created 80 games in 48 hours, highlighting the potential of the platform.

“It was a real pleasure to work with GGJ this year and to see so many game developers’ ideas blossom in YAHAHA,” said Yahaha Studios COO Pengfei Zhang at the time. “Being able to provide a physical, as well as online, space for jammers really created a sense of community amongst everyone, and we’re excited to continue our work with GGJ in the form of a long-term partnership to keep bringing YAHAHA to people around the world and pursue our mission to democratise 3D games content creation.”

At GDC 2023, Yahaha’s booth drew over 2,700 participants, resulting in the creation of more than 800 games.