From Off The Grid to Azra via Axie
That was a week that was!
For reasons both structural and newsworthy, this week was dominated by blockchain game funding.
The headline trend remains downwards with investment into the sector during Q3 2024 a mere $128 million, down 57% compared to Q2’s $296 million.
Compared to 2023, the first nine months of 2024 were down 31% — $748 million compared to $1.1 billion.
And yet this week also saw the largest single blockchain game investment of 2024, with US developer Azra Games announcing its $42.7 million Series A round, which was more than the $30 million announced for the whole of September.
Of course, despite being funded by the likes of crypto funds Pantera and a16z crypto, Azra lent back from highlighting its blockchain foundations. Instead it was left to the VCs to talk about “open-world economies” and “the digital ownership of blockchain” (whatever that is).
Azra was happy to say that it was using “AI to accelerate the development of AAA mobile content at scale by industrializing the RPG development process,” however.
I can only imagine a genAI-ed Henry Ford with a room full of H200s.
As for other news, one ongoing point of discussion was the launch into early access of Off The Grid.
The battle royale shooter generated headlines with its streamer-heavy marketing campaign, but while some praised its impact, others discussed whether it was leveraging blockchain in the best way, generating further responses from its supporters.
Either way, everyone seems to agree that this launch is just the start as developer Gunzilla will be rolling out new content and modes — and likely marketing too — in the coming months.
Finally, I conversed with Sky Mavis co-founder Jeff ‘Jihoz’ Zirlin in BCGW #183 about the momentum of its Ronin gaming blockchain as it moves from being the singular home of Axie Infinity to a wider ecosystem and — eventually in 2025 — an open platform on which any developer can launch their own zkrollup.
Zirlin also highlighting the economic stability of Axie Infinity as a core element of the ecosystem, with its treasury generating $300,000 a month of AXS tokens as players upgrade their NFTs to make them more powerful, while 70% of the AXS given away in daily rewards are being staked or hodled.
Sponsored by Hiro Capital: investing 📈 in the future 🔮 of gaming 🎮
Weekly News Roundup
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Arbitrum’s $220 million Gaming Catalyst Program is under fire.
Arena combat game Moonray is coming to PS5 in 2025.
Dragginz is launching early access and its world builder tool in November.
Oxalis raises $2 million for launch of PC farming sim Moonfrost.
Animoca Brands commits to support WATcoin with open market buying.
Sequence partners with Sura.gg to push web3 in LATAM.
Double Jump.Tokyo invests in new Asian-centric web3 VC Neoclassic.
TapNation is launching Rock Crawling: Racing Games 3D with web3 gaming platform PLAY (previously Ready.gg)
As discussed below … in which I compare DappRadar to peanut allergies!
Additional Links
Animoca Brands is holding a consumer event called GEN3 Playground in Hong Kong on 2th November.
The value of Merit Circle’s treasury decreased 3% in Q3 to $228 million.
Today completed its free mint of Mythic Seed, which are now trading at $180.
Immutable-based idle RPG Immortal Rising 2 is starting a $100,000 token pre-sale.
Gold hits another all-time-high, while Bitcoin is within 8% of its.
Check out the Big Blockchain Game Report Q2 2024 👀 here.