Six years on...

Blockchain Game Summit 2018 revisited

To be honest, it makes a change from Google resurfacing photos of my children but was the first (and last) Blockchain Game Summit really only six years ago?

It was. Organized by now defunct French game developer B2Expand and held in Lyon, it seems an age ago, both in real time but particularly in blockchain time.

Indeed, checking my YouTube feed to see what I was doing back then, I was playing Zombie Battleground and Bitizens. Who remembers?

My first attempt to play Axie Infinity wouldn’t happen until October [YT] and I didn’t buy my first three Axie NFTs — $20 apiece: ETH was only $250 — and play the game until December 2018 [YT]. Still got the NFTs!

As for the conference, I gave a talk about the state of play of blockchain gaming — for which I can’t find the deck, although I do have what was likely a similar presentation given in November 2018, bizarrely given at an Epic Games meetup in Morocco [YT].

As an aside, my interest in graphing the most popular blockchain games started in 2019, as demonstrated by this graph tracking the performance of the-then top six games, none of which are still operating.

It’s also worth noting the vertical scale — EOS Knights was the most popular title with a peak of 7,000 daily active unique wallets.

Most of these games for most of the time had under 3,000 DAUWs however, so at least we’ve seen some improvement since, with a dozen games now in the range of 100,000 DAUWs, albeit with the usual warnings over bots.

Looking back, my most notable call to action during that period was actually in another early conference: the Crypto Games Conference Kiev 2019. Poignant now for other reasons, my small ‘c’ conclusion about blockchain games then was that while user numbers are the broadest KPI for success, we need a better metric, not DAUWs.

Five years on, we still haven’t managed to crack that one.

But back to the photo that Google found. It was a panel discussion from some of the sector’s early luminaries.

Far left is the Blockchain Game Alliance’s first president Manon Burgel, which is a good reminder for anyone who hasn’t yet completed its 2024 Survey to do so.

Next comes Alex ‘SillyTuna’ Amsel, who found fame selling an alien CryptoPunk at auction for the-then record price of $11.8 million. Currently in hiatus.

Two along, Gabby Dizon went on to co-found Yield Guild Gaming in 2020 also becoming one of the best connected investors in the space. As well as his work with Infinity Ventures Crypto, I’ve tracked 30 publicly-announced angel deals he’s been involved with but I’m sure there are many more.

Ubisoft’s Nicolas Pouard has seen some ups-and-downs along the way but with Champions Tactics and Captain Laserhawk: The Game both close to launch, the company’s long term commitment to blockchain gaming — which he has headed up —appears to be playing off.

As for Witek Radomski, back in 2018, his company Enjin seemed one of those best placed for success. Technically it was one of the first to talk about L2 scaling solutions, while Radomski himself proposed the ERC1155 NFT standard. Now transitioned to run on Polkadot from Ethereum, Enjin is still operating but seemingly with little developer support.

And finally it’s Nicolas Gilot from PC gaming distribution platform Ultra, which runs its own L1 blockchain and is about to launch its first exclusive title, an FPS called Ashes of Mankind.

But for me, my chief memory from the conference was talking to a certain Hilmar Veigar Pétursson for the first time. He was lurking around as he proceeded to do at a number of blockchain gaming conferences in those years, never speaking on stage but making contacts and (likely) thinking about what could be…

So, in that regard, maybe this photo is just another a reminder to be patient. Slow, very, very slowly until all at once.

---

Sponsored by Hiro Capital: investing 📈 in the future 🔮 of gaming 🎮

---

Calendar

• Champions Tactics’ open beta launches — 18th September

• FPS Ashes of Mankind drops first NFTs — 23rd September

• Gamee’s WAT token goes live — 23rd September

• Hamster Kombat’s token will (air)drop — 26th September

• EVE Frontier’s next closed beta test starts — 27th September

• Champions Tactics’ open beta ends — 23rd September

• Mythical’s Forest token airdrop event ends — 13th October

Blockchain Gaming World #180 news

• Don’t miss out on my conversation with Foonie Magus CEO Frank Cheng, talking about the inspirations and aspirations for Apeiron, its mobile/PC hybrid game, which mixes deck building and dungeon-based RTS with god game meta, all running on Ronin.

You can also check out the transcription via BlockchainGamer.biz.

Funding Funders news

• US early stage VC fund Patron has announced its second fund has raised $100 million. Founded by Jason Yeh and Brian Cho — two VCs-turned-Riot Games execs — plus Amber Atherton — who was acquihired by Discord — the fund is backed by the likes of Marc Andreessen, Chris Dixon, Fred Wilson, Garry Tan and Ron Conway. Its aim is to “invest in a future shaped by games”.

To-date, it’s led investments into:

• blockchain storytelling platform StoryCo,

• web3 marketing startup Sesame Labs (which has since pivoted into AI),

• and player-owned sports game Fast Break Labs, which appears to have shut down.

Several more of its 20-odd investments — notably its blockchain-focused ones — also appear to have bitten the dust, but a couple of AI gaming projects look interesting. And in the interests of balance, it’s also had its first exit, with gameplay sharing platform Hamul acquired by Roblox for $30 million.

FSL Heads To Mythos news

• Now building its future on Polkadot, the Mythos blockchain is starting to pick up support beyond the games from originating company Mythical Games. Previously on Solana (STEPN) with a touch of Polygon (Gas Heroes), Find Satoshi Lab has announced a collaboration that will integrate Mythos within its FSL ID system and its MOOAR NFT marketplace.

The deal will kick off with a Nitro Nation-branded sneaker being released in FSL’s move-to-earn game STEPN.