Occupy White Walls Officially Launches on Steam

Free-To-Play Art Collecting, Museum-Building MMO Leaves Early Access and Is Available to Download Today

Friday 8 July: Occupy White Walls - an immersive sandbox MMO where players express their creativity with art and architecture, designing and exploring stunning fantastical art galleries - is available to download on Steam today!

Developer KULTURA Ex Machina (formally StikiPixels) has released a brand-new trailer to celebrate the game’s Steam launch. You can view the launch trailer here.

The official press kit is also available to download here.

Co-developed by KULTURA Ex Machina and its community, Occupy White Walls is an immersive free-to-play MMO, leaving Early Access with 90,000 players and more than 102,000 digital art galleries. The game features almost 45,500,000 sqm of player created gallery space, 625-times that of Paris’ Louvre, and houses more than 31,800 artworks - over 40 times what the Tate Britain has on display, for example. Deliberately relaxed and welcoming by design, Occupy White Walls is played by a huge variety of people, attracting both new-to-the art scene traditional gamers and new-to-the gaming scene art lovers alike. As a result, this online game has one of the lowest ever player toxicity rates, with only 156 players ever receiving a ban - just 0.17% of players.

Occupy White Walls is powered by DAISY, a first-of-its-kind AI that allows players to discover and treasure art they never even realised they loved.

As well as helping players discover and grow their individual taste in art, DAISY also provides emerging artists with a platform to be discovered by people worldwide, cleverly promoted by the AI on equal footing with the world’s most famous artists. Artworks are listed from the likes of Claude Monet, Rembrandt, and Vincent van Gogh, as well as from up-and-coming digital artists such as Rosa Francesca and Jamie Stantonian, who are using experimental technologies to create interactive installations and surreal 3D renders.

“Occupy White Walls was created with a vision to democratise the often inaccessible and sometimes intimidating world of art,” commented KULTURA Ex Machina Founder and CEO Yarden Yaroshevski. “With DAISY, we offer a non-judgemental environment and a truly level playing field for both artists and the ‘art curious’ to get into the ‘art world’.

“This could only have been done in a video game. Art is for everyone, but the art world isn’t. The only way to revolutionise this stagnant, entrenched ‘world’, is to tackle it as total outsiders. As game developers, we are as alien as they come, especially to the art establishment. Incidentally, as an ‘art platrfom’ we also push the boundaries of what it means to make a game.

“I’m proud that our game helps artists like Rosa establish themselves, outside the old-guard establishment, and gives players a safe place to confidently explore and discover art - and ultimately discover themselves.”

The team at KULTURA Ex Machina is dedicated to making art more accessible. In July 2020, the team staged the “biggest art heist in history”, importing more than 2,300 artworks and architecture from London’s National Gallery’s collection into the game. The heist, which received no recognition from the National Gallery, has resulted in the collection’s artwork being featured in more than 36,000 digital galleries around the world, all of this while the National Gallery (and the rest of the world) was in Lockdown. More information about the heist can be found here.

For all press enquiries please contact kulturaexmachina@bastion.co.uk.