Have you installed crypto security layer Stelo for Metamask yet? If not, why not?
Good to see that someone — not me! — at the Big Blockchain Game List has been working hard.
The numbers have been crunched and we’ve got our first update for 2023, which looks at the now 724 games listed, although this total doesn’t include the 80-odd titles which are now on the discontinued tab.
In terms of headline news, the big surprise is the increase in Multichain games, which is now the largest single category at 19%.
When it comes to single chain games, BNB has a 14% share, Polygon 12% and Ethereum 11%. Solana is at 9%, which is broadly the same as November’s data.
My thinking is the growth of Multichain reflects the migration of some Solana projects to additional chains, as well as a more general strategy for EVM-compatible games to have high value assets on Ethereum and gameplay assets on Polygon.
But we shall see in the coming months how these trends play out. Personally I’d bet on Solana becoming less important than previous, while game-specific chains such as IMX, Gala and Oasys bulk up in the short-term.
Ethereum L2 chains will likely also become important as the year rolls on.
But you can see if this plays out (or not) by keeping up-to-date with all the data and analysis at BigBlockchainGameList.com and/or via Twitter.
This Substack is sponsored by Hiro Capital: Investing in the future of games
AI Characters Minting On Polygon news
Moving on from ChatGPT, Alethea AI’s CharacterGPT has launched, which enables users to generate AI characters from a simple text prompt. At present, it’s free to use and you can collect up to five permanent characters per day, which can also be minted onto the Polygon blockchain. At time of writing, over 47,000 NFTs have been minted from over 21,000 accounts.
Once you’ve created a character, you can use the voice or text-to-video option to generate video content using their face and voice. Alethea AI is also giving out a small number of its ALI tokens for users.
As with most AI, it’s well worth messing around with. It’s amusing me, at least.
Immutable Announces New Wallet news
ImmutableX has announced its Immutable Passport, a simple onboarding solution — including a wallet and an authentication tool — for game studios.
It uses a “passwordless” sign-in system — via email or social logins — and automatically creates a self-custodial wallet. Users can also set up 2FA security and gain access to their private keys via a recovery mechanism. In this way, Immutable hopes to allow game devs to onboard a mainstream audience in a secure manner that also provides developers with a solid platform including data analytics.
Of course, Immutable’s own games such as Gods Unchained and Guild of Guardians will be among the first titles to support the tech when it goes live for consumers in April.
Interested developers can sign up here.
Boomtimes For Boomland news
Congrats to Boomland (N.B. I’m an advisor), which has successfully (free) minted out its first 1,500 NFTs for its Hunters On-Chain game on Polygon via Magic Eden. I’m told the first 750 minted out from its whitelist in 4 minutes, while the final 750 — on a more open whitelist — disappeared in 18 seconds.
The chests are now selling with a floor of 70 MATIC ($80) and the character reveal happens tomorrow.
Further mints of both legendary and common characters will happen alongside the game’s launch later in February.
Gala Games’ 2023 Strategy
I’ve written “some things” about Gala recently so I was interested to look through its 2023 strategy document, which is subtitled Entertainment at Scale. Notable points are that Gala says it’s already spent $150 million on games with 40 titles in development of which 12 will launch in 2023. It labels five of these games “bonafide triple-A games”. In total, it says it has “committed in excess of $300 million to game projects”.
As previously discussed, mobile games will be a priority, with Gala working on an in-game premium currency (not a cryptocurrency) with a working title of Gems, that will be generated by burning GALA tokens.
In this way, Gala hopes that mainstream players will buy Gems via standard IAPs, which will be created by the platform as it burns GALA in the background, presumably creating a net sink. Gala will also be ensuring all its games use the GALA token directly rather than running their own token(s).
More generally, Gala will launch an NFT land sale for its VOXverse game during H1, and launch its music platform in late March, with its movie platform due for release in 2023. It will also further roll out its own gaming-focused GYRI blockchain during the year, which uses GALA as its gas token.
Additional Links
CoinDesk published and then retracted Todd Fine’s article about the alleged fascistic undertones of Yuga Labs, which allegedly threatened to sue. In retrospect, CoinDesk now says the article contained “inflammatory, unsubstantiated conspiracy theories”. Todd Fine disagrees.
Social token platform Rally is shutting down. One investor calls it a “rug”.
How to lose $400,000 trading high-end Doodles. Ouch!
Listen to all your usual podcasts in Fountain and get paid in sats for the first hour daily -- more if you use my referral link!