Jam City is first 'trad game' co going P2E
F2P mobile game outfit goes first penguin
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Although Zynga was the first publicly-owned US game company to hire a VP of blockchain games, it is smaller rival Jam City that’s first out off the blocks with a product announcement.
Over the past weekend, it soft launched details of its forthcoming play-to-earn game Champions Ascension.
There aren’t too many details yet but a 10,000 NFT drop of genesis heroes is due in the coming weeks with a game launch in “early 2022”.
Despite Jam City being a F2P mobile game company, I’d expect this to be a browser game, minting on the Ethereum ecosystem, probably mainnet.
But what’s more significant than the details and even the product announcement is the speed at which traditional gaming appears to be entering the blockchain game sector.
Personally I wasn’t expecting to see much concrete activity until the second half of 2022 but as soon as NFT launches are happening and products are going live, it’s going to be hard for any public company to resist shareholder pressure, if nothing else.
Looks like it’s going to be busy holiday season for many R&D departments!
Funding news
Animoca Brands has partnered up with Binance to create a $200 million fund to encourage GameFi projects on the Binance Smart Chain blockchain.
To-date there have been plenty of self-described games on BSC but few could be described as deep experiences, and some of the most popular have eventually imploded.
Product news
Adidas has doubled down on the metaverse, following its The Sandbox deal with a partnership with Bored Ape Yacht Club — included its own branded ape — NFT collector gMoney and PunksComic.
The World of Sipher governance token sale is now live on Ethereum. The project is looking to raise $14.4 million.
One of the first game on the Flow blockchain, Chainmonsters’ closed beta is now live.
OGs might remember the Everdragons project in 2018/9, which was one of the first games to go multi-chain. It’s now back under new management and minting.
You can now farm the Splinterlands’ ETH/SPS pair by adding liquidity on Sushiswap. You’ll also get 2x rewards for the first 60 days.
Changing hearts and minds news