Blockchain game sector investment breaks $3 billion in 2022
Records smashed
Apologises for the lack of an email yesterday. We had the sort of family day trip in which half the children go down sick, while the other half are particularly boisterous to compensate, plus it’s raining and there are numerous motorway delays. Oh, and my wife has Covid. Probably me now too…
Good thing there’s plenty of juicy blockchain game news.
On that score, I've noted I’ve now tracked $3 billion of funding to the blockchain game sector in 2022 so far. That compares to $4.2 billion for the whole of 2021.
I’m also working on a big data dump about what happened in detail during Q1. I hope to have that out with some nice graphs post-Easter weekend. (Sorry Spike!)
Funding news
Chinese/Icelandic mobile XR game developer Directive Games has announced a $20 million funding round for its Ethereum-based DAO-heavy 4X strategy game Civitas.
The round was led by Delphi Digital and Three Arrows Capital, with participation from usual suspects such as Bitkraft, DeFiance Capital, Dialectic, CMT Digital, Sfermion and Infinity Ventures Crypto.
Guilds such as YGG and Merit Circle were also involved, while angels included Gmoney, Stani (Aave), plus Kain and Kieran Warwick (Synthetix and Illuvium).
EVE Online developer CCP Online is noted as an investor too. Some of Directive Games’ senior staff previously worked at CPP.
The game plans to be cross-platform, including on mobile with an AR element, also using a L2 for scaling (likely Immutable X given the Warwicks’ involvement). Directive hopes to release an early access version sometime in 2023.
US studio Neon Machine has announced a $7 million private token sale for its PC-based UGC extraction shooter Shrapnel, which is one of the most anticipated games on the Avalanche blockchain.
Investors included Three Arrows Capital, Mechanism Capital, Sfermion, DeFiance Capital and Overwolf as well as angels like Dennis Fong, Stephen Lim (Riot Games) and M. Shadow from the band Avenged Sevenfold.
Neon Machine previously announced a $10.5 million funding round led by Griffin Gaming Partners plus Polychain Capital and Forte in November 2021.
As part of the funding news, Neon Machine has also released the Shrapnel whitepaper, which discusses the game’s SHRAP governance token amongst other things. It’s well worth a read especially in terms of how the land system works.
M&A news
Animoca Brands has acquired French driving studio Eden Games for an undisclosed amount. Founded in 1998 as part of publisher Infogrames, Eden was best known for its work on the V-Rally and Test Drive console franchises but in recent years has worked on mobile racing games, most notably its Gear.Club series.
The deal follows Animoca’s acquisition of Australian racing specialist Grease Monkey Games in February as it looks to build out its REVV motorsport ecosystem, which has recently been hit by the discontinuation of its signature F1 Delta Time game and a general lack of development capacity for other announced projects.
Product news
Netmarble has completed the integration of its Marblex DEX wallet service within its existing mobile RPG A3: Still Alive; something that will go live for users in the next app update.
This will enable players to convert the Inetrion Ore in-game currency into cryptos such as Inetrium, MBX Link and MBX. The update will also be supported with the ability to build mythical equipment, the release of more growth items and various community events, which will help players reach the required level 200 to unlock blockchain elements.
Airdrop news
Following the successful solution of the first Cyberbrokers’ quest, all NFT owners have been airdropped a Mecha arm NFT, either a standard one, or a special one if involved in actually solving the quest.
Collecting these parts will eventually allow owners to build a mech, which their operator NFT will pilot.
Not Sure What It Means news
Xsolla co-founders Aleksandr Agapitov and Constantin Andry are launching X.LA, something labelled “one of the prime building blocks in Web3” that will “enable revenue-sharing for gaming and other businesses” across metaverses.
Not sure exactly what that means but you can claim a free NFT — the second of three — at midnight on Friday 15th April 2021. The first NFT is available on Polygon starting from $5.