#841 Good, bad and the ugly
Another week of news
Top 300 Web3 Games Index: ↑3% today, ↓52% YTD
Ronin Games Index: ↓2% today, ↓73% YTD
Immutable Games Index: ↑1% today, ↓56% YTD
AI Gaming Agents: ↑19% today, ↓54% YTD
Jon’s TX Games Index: ↑2% today, ↓54% YTD
Jon’s 2025 Reboot Index*: ↓2% today, ↓50% YTD
*Definitely not investment advice
In a year-to-date of bad sentiment, it was a change this week to get some good news amongst the increasingly ugly.
The announcement of new high profile games always generates excitement, although the reveal of Ubisoft and Immutable’s Might & Magic: Fates was tempered by Ubisoft’s previous failed web3 experiences, as well as the game’s genre.
As I generally ask in these situations ‘Do we really need another web3 TCG?’
Hopefully the press conference scheduled on 1st May will provide more details as we build up for a winter 2025 release.
More good news — at least in my opinion — came with the news that Pixels will be the first game to use the Apptokens protocol.
There are many ways of using Apptokens, of course, but in this case Pixels is limiting its implementation to the launch of a new onchain token. Called vPIXEL, it will be worth 1 PIXEL but crucially it can only be spent in-game or staked, and is not transferable to external wallets to be sold off for other crypto.
In this way, Pixels hopes to be able to more widely distribute vPIXEL as a reward mechanic while limiting negative price impacts for PIXEL.
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I’m not sure exactly how one would categorize the various stories arising from the ongoing lawsuit between Ready Games US (aka Ready Makers Inc.) and its token-issuing arm Ready Maker (Gibraltar) Ltd — confusing?
Ready Games US won its first case in the US and then its first case in front of the Gibraltar Supreme Court, but that court has now overturned its initial ruling, in part because Ready Games US was dissolved in March 2024 and was only reinstated in December 2024 for the purpose of launching the lawsuit.
The judge was not impressed with that.
As for the purpose of the lawsuit, Ready Games US — technically three of its founders and investors including Bitkraft — claimed they were owed 150 million of the PLAY tokens that Ready Maker (Gibraltar) Ltd had issued in December 2024, and which has lost 86% of its value since launch.
Seems like it could be another case of two bald men fighting over a comb, although with Ready Maker (Gibraltar) Ltd having seeming won the case, it could now be rewarded damages from Ready Games US, or what’s left of it.
And, more generally, investment sentiment around blockchain gaming continues to worsen.
Q1 2025 saw a total of $108 million of deals announced, down 67% year-on-year.
Weekly News roundup
Fishing Frenzy is the first permissionless Ronin game to get official Sky Mavis support.
The Sandbox signs a multi-year deal with Bruce Lee Enterprise.
Improbable’s Msquared launches fully onchain MMO Chunked on Somnia testnet.
From zero to 50 million and beyond: How LINE NEXT is scaling Mini Dapps.
Mobile 4X game War of Nova launches on 8th May.
Rise of Fearless launches with hope of bringing African gamers to web3.
Astar Network’s Yoki Origins rebrands and launches on Sony’s Soneium.
Sci-fi story-based DeFi trading game Yolo.ex launches via Epic Games Store.
Our Game of the Week is The Sandbox, especially The British Museum experience.
As discussed below:
One Year Ago: I was pointing out the decline in blockchain game funding, noting that most of 2024’s deals were “related to the pre-sale of tokens; an opportunity wholly reliant on current market conditions”.
Prescient, though I say it myself.
Quirky Japanese Strategy Game news
Less a trading card game than a strategy battle with card elements, Double Jump.Tokyo’s Sangokushi Taisen Kai - Battle of Three Kingdoms is about to go live. Based on an old Japan-only arcade IP from Sega, the game will run on the Japanese-centric Oasys blockchain and be released on mobile and PC on 30th April with language support for support for Japanese, English, and Traditional Chinese.
Blockchain elements include warlord NFTs and the SGC token for rewards, staking and governance, with gameplay ranges from auto-play battles to guild vs guild wars.
Additional Links
The NFT marketplace in Ubisoft’s Captain Lazerhawk game is now live.
Ronin has completed the migration of its Ethereum token bridge into a multichain bridge powered by Chainlink.
TOKYO BEAST has hit 900,000 pre-registrations.
USDT outfit Tether owns over 10% of Juventus.
TRON founder Justin Sun is the largest holder of TRUMP tokens.