Is this a bull market or are you just pleased to read me?
Aside from all the joy we’re getting this week with the price rise of tokens such as SOL, NEAR, MANA, AXS etc, my monthly review of onchain gaming activity is also starting to show the first signs of viral growth.
Of course, this is not always — usually never — arising from the most reputable projects, but nevertheless growth comes in the ways that growth-aligned people engineer.
So, in this month’s video I’ve particularly highlighted two projects, which have seen strong growth but which are more focused on the allure of financial returns than gameplay innovation. Unsurprisingly, both run on the BNB blockchain, which — imho — is heavily over-indexed towards potential ROI.
Seg Finance really looks like a ponzi scheme presented in the wrapper of move-to-earn NFT game STEPN in that you buy an NFT sneaker but you don’t actually have to do anything to earn, just keep hodling plus there’s a geared referral marketing network. With no clear source of sustainable economics, you don’t have to be genius to see who’s likely funding the withdrawals.
To-date, if you believe the website, $34 million has gone into the project and $765,000 has been withdrawn, so it may run for a few days yet but these things only end one way.
BLCR is less overt and indeed has a whitepaper explaining how it’s not a ponzi scheme but I’d suggest it’s much more of a financial/gambling project than a gaming project.
As for the proper projects that have been building through years of fat and thin, there’s not been much change in October.
Alien Worlds is back to being the top game in terms of online daily activity but only because Farmers World has declined,
Splinterlands is steady ahead of its latest card expansion,
Nine Chronicles awaits its mobile launch on 22 November to (hopefully) continue 2023’s growth.
All these games are much more refined than they were 12 months ago. The stage is set. We just require a massing market.
This Substack is sponsored by Hiro Capital: investing in the future of gaming
Calendar
Dogami Academy launches early access — 7th November
Champions Ascension ends early access alpha — 8th November
Phantom Galaxies goes into early access — 15th November
Nine Chronicles M goes live — 22nd November
Blockchain Guillotine news
Not sure that’s how I would describe it but Gumi Cryptos’ Miko Matsumura has been making headlines with his comment that:
“Blockchain is a revolutionary technology of the enlightenment, like the guillotine, designed to remove the crowned heads of Europe, or the centralizers that effectively control the industry.”
I guess we await our coming Napoleon.
Bridging The Gap news
The holding company behind Indian gaming guild IndiGG has announced a $6 million program to incentivize web2 game developers to add blockchain into their live games.
The Kratos Games Network is now open to applications and will start giving out grants in March 2024, spread across 10 to 15 studios based either in India, LATAM, east Asia or south east Asia. Qualifying games will have to demonstrate existing daily audiences of more than 500,000 players.
More Ronin news
Sky Mavis’ BD team is busy-busy and the latest news is that South Korean mobile developer ACT Games is bringing its portfolio of games to the Ronin blockchain. First up this means its Zoidz Wild Arena mobile TCG will migrate from Polygon to Ronin on Wednesday 8th November.
But perhaps more exciting is the news that ACT Games will also be launching a Hello Kitty game, amongst others, in 2024.
Additional Links
ApeDAO has spoken: council’s pay to be cut by 50% to a mere $125,000 in ApeCoin. Won’t change anything says Degentraland.
BlockLords now has a Steam page (for its web2 version obvs).
Immutable has added three new games — GensoKishi Online, Cursed Stone and Sailwars.
Onchain rendering platform Render Network has migrated from Ethereum to Solana.
Demonstrative of institutional interest prior to the expected launch of BTC EFTs om January 2024, the regulated Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) now ranks #2 in terms of its volume of Bitcoin futures and perpetual futures.
Listen to all your podcasts in Fountain and get paid in Bitcoin.