ego

What do they actually do

ego is building tools to put persistent, personality-driven AI characters inside 3D worlds. The team positions this as “Character AI + Roblox,” aiming to let creators add NPCs that remember, act, and feel consistent across in‑game and social surfaces without heavy scripting or bespoke behavior trees YC company page ego homepage.

Today, ego describes an Unreal‑based character engine and a “Character Context Protocol,” with a waitlist and demos rather than broad self‑serve availability. They’ve shown live simulations such as TownWorld (a 3D, generative‑agent town streamed on Twitch) and CharacterIdol, and list a first game (“Accomplice”) to play from their site. Early use cases they highlight include D&D‑style roleplay, Minecraft RP, and streaming companions, with the pitch that creators won’t need to hand‑script complex behaviors YC company page ego homepage.

Who are their target customer(s)

• Roblox/Minecraft UGC creators who build worlds but don’t want to write complex scripts: They struggle to add believable, persistent NPCs; learning Lua/3D tools and hand‑scripting behavior is slow and error‑prone YC company page.
• Small indie game teams that need NPCs with personality: They spend disproportionate time on brittle scripts and still ship flat, predictable characters that don’t retain players YC company page.
• Streamers and interactive‑show producers on Twitch/YouTube: They want on‑stage characters during live events but lack scalable ways to run dynamic, entertaining NPCs, so engagement relies on scripted stunts or expensive human performers YC company page.
• Community managers and bot builders on Discord and similar platforms: They need persistent, memorable personas to sustain conversation and retention, but existing bots feel generic and don’t build long‑term bonds source.
• Roleplay and tabletop groups (D&D/Minecraft RP): They want characters that remember past interactions and feel like believable people, but building memory and emotional continuity by hand is time‑consuming or infeasible ego homepage YC company page.

How would they acquire their first 10, 50, and 100 customers

• First 10: Personally recruit ~8–10 high‑impact creators/indie teams and 1–2 streamers; do free hands‑on integrations to ship a live NPC in a week, capture demos/quotes, and iterate until stable.
• First 50: Use the first 10 as showcases with templates and short how‑to videos; run targeted outreach in Roblox/Minecraft forums, Discord creator servers, and streamer communities with low‑cost pilots and simple templates/rev‑share.
• First 100: Open self‑serve with prebuilt world templates and a simple in‑world install flow; keep a small white‑glove lane for larger users and scale via creator referrals, sponsored tutorials/streams, and partnerships with UGC tool vendors and Discord communities.

What is the rough total addressable market

Top-down context:

Roblox reported 111.8M average DAUs (Q2 2025) and over $1B in creator earnings in one year via DevEx, indicating a large, monetized UGC creator economy that buys tools and services Roblox newsroom. Minecraft’s marketplace alone had generated roughly $1B in sales value by 2021, with $350M cumulatively paid to creators, highlighting another sizeable UGC spend pool Microsoft fact sheet via Naavik.

Bottom-up calculation:

Roblox has 24,500+ creators in DevEx; if 5–10% (1.2k–2.5k teams) adopt AI‑NPC tooling at an average $1,200/year (subscription/runtimes), that’s ~$1.5–$3.0M annually from Roblox alone. A similar‑scale wedge across Minecraft UGC and a subset of streamers/Discord communities could roughly double this to ~$3–$6M as an initial serviceable market before broader expansion Roblox newsroom Naavik.

Assumptions:

• Pricing averages $100/month per paying creator or deployment in early stages.
• Adoption limited to active, monetizing UGC teams and engaged streamers/communities in the first 1–2 years.
• Minecraft creator adoption and streamer/Discord uptake roughly match early Roblox penetration.

Who are some of their notable competitors

• Inworld AI: Developer‑focused “character engine” for games with SDKs, voice, and low‑latency runtimes to power in‑game NPCs; strong overlap on real‑time, embodied characters Inworld site character engine explainer.
• Player2 (Elefant AI): “AI for games” platform used by modders and creators; desktop app/SDKs to make NPCs act like embodied players, including Minecraft mod integrations Player2 Minecraft mod example.
• Convai: APIs and Unity/Unreal plugins for creating and controlling AI characters with voice and actions; appeals to developers wanting programmatic authoring and runtime control Convai blog docs.
• Spirit AI: Early tools for narrative‑driven NPCs and moderation (Ally); focus on natural dialogue, emotion, and safety across games and social platforms overview/coverage analysis.
• Character.ai: Mass consumer catalog of chat‑first personalities with high engagement; historically less suited for embedded, real‑time 3D NPC runtimes and broad developer APIs Character.ai API availability discussion.