Pixels is #1, Dapper's legally free and pirate gold a'coming
Weekly roundup
We kicked off the week with our regular review of the most popular blockchain games, which as it has been all year, was an opportunity to highlight the growth of browser-based social RPG Pixels.
During May it surpassed 1 million daily active unique wallets on Ronin for the first time and although it has since fallen back to 850,000, Pixels’ remains the pre-eminent blockchain game, at least in terms of this metric.
Tuesday was a trip down memory lane in the context that Dapper Labs had finally concluded the class action lawsuit against it that arose from the initial success of its NFT collection NBA Top Shot in early 2021.
It paid $4 million in penalties but CEO Roham Gharegozlou was also keen to point out that the legal process had concluded the Flow blockchain was decentralized and that Top Shot NFTs were not securities.
Notably the SEC had also been investigating Dapper Labs but closed its internal case in September 2023.
On Wednesday, Pirate Nation holders and players received the joyful news that the PIRATE token would go live on 13th June, with 32% of our allocation being made available at TGE.
However, those of us of a longterm disposition won’t be selling but will instead be staking our PIRATE in order to get PoP Points, which seem likely to eventually convert into the token for the underlying Apex blockchain on which Pirate Nation runs. Good pirates know to look deeper for the best treasure!
Wednesday also saw the release of Blockchain Gaming World #171 in which I discussed the vision of one billion blockchain gamers with Stardust CEO Canaan Linder, whose tools are used by the likes of Shrapnel and Midnight Society.
As for Thursday, I fell down one of my favourite current rabbitholes, looking at some data from Immutable about the sign-up conversation rate for its Passport wallet.
It’s not a topic everyone likely engages with but it’s one that will be significant as it appears that developers are increasingly attempting to reach gamers via mobile games distributed through app stores so a seamless UA funnel is vital.
For the record, Mythical Games has just announced NFL Rivals has now done five million downloads and it hopes to hit 10 million by the end of 2024.
Finally — as discussed at length in our weekly video — came the news that The Sandbox had raised $20 million via convertible notes with a $1 billion valuation cap.
In late 2021, it had announced a raise of $93 million on a pre-round valuation of $500 million, but there had also been rumors of an up-to $400 million raise at a $4 billion valuation at the height of the metaverse boom in 2022.
How things have changed!
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Weekly News Roundup
Ronin breaks 20 million wallets barrier.
Xterio launches Overworld Arena mini-game with $100,000 prize pool.
Boomland reveals Archery Club and Car Driving School.
Sky Mavis launches six slots for early access games on Ronin.
The Mystery Society leaves Polygon for Immutable.
Metamask gets into game discovery via HyperPlay integration.
Animoca and EVG announce cross-investment deal.
As discussed below…
Additional Links
Not everyone is impressed with Overworld Arena.
Despite some pushback, it looks like Arbitrum’s $250 million allocation for gaming will pass later today; currently 78% have voted for.
Things don’t look to be going great for Shima Capital founder Yida Gao. For the record, Shima ranks #3 in my gaming investment dataset with at least 53 deals.
The TON blockchain is repeating its Notcoin degen activity with the rise of Hamster Kombat.
Check out the Big Blockchain Game Report Q1 2024 👀 here or 👀 via PDF.