Middle Tech Spotlight Series: Wes Keltner

Making Fear Fun: Gun Interactive’s recipe for viral horror games (and record KY investor returns)

Author

Middle Tech
June 23, 2025

June 23rd, 2025

In the Spotlight: Wes Keltner

Morning, friends - Logan here. I hope you got to spend the longest day of the year in the sun! ☀️

Today’s episode drops us inside one of Lexington’s most successful tech ventures: Wes Keltner, founder & CEO of Gun Interactive - the studio behind cult-classic video game hits Friday the 13th and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

Wes’s arc from “broke UK junior” to horror-gaming icon starts with a scrappy cold pitch to American Apparel: he and a handful of Second Life freelancers built the brand’s first virtual store, which drew 60k avatars on day one and topped one million in a week - landing him on the front page of The Wall Street Journal. That win kicked off a career that eventually led to the birth of Gun Interactive.

Gun Interactive is a Lexington-based game studio that specializes in asymmetrical multiplayer horror, turning iconic slasher films into high-stakes, team-based experiences. Their games have brought in more than 15M players and pioneered a new style of video game.

What We Discussed:

Melting Servers on Launch Day

Prepped for 20 k concurrent players - 150k showed up in the first three minutes, forcing a ten-day, round-the-clock firefight to keep the game online

Bluegrass Angels’ Best Bet

Local investors earned a double-digit-multiple return on Friday the 13th, making Gun one of the group’s standout wins

Asymmetrical Multiplayer Horror

Why stacking three killers against four survivors pushed the genre forward and made Texas Chain Saw rocket past 4 million players

Kickstarter + Film-Style Royalties

Wes ditched traditional VC, raising capital via fan crowdfunding and Hollywood-style royalty points that pay out per game, not on a distant exit

We hope you enjoy this episode! If you have any thoughts after listening, feel free to shoot me a message at [email protected]

Have a great week, friends!

Real Estate more your speed? Check our sister brand, DevelopLex.