This is the weekly free post from GamesTX. For the daily experience, including all the blockchain game news worth knowing, please consider becoming a paying subscriber.
I’ve previously written about my high regard for MZ founder Gabe Leydon and as mentioned in yesterday’s email, he’s got me thinking again.
He tweeted
I think both points are significant.
The first is that EVE Online is a highly complex game with a key economic component. Famously it appointed its first economist in 2007 and continues to release monthly economic report.
That’s why it’s cited by so many blockchain games as a point of inspiration, particularly the myriad of space combat/trading games in development.
I think we could learn a lot about the pressures inherent in running in-game economies as they relate to community etc over multiple decades by studying EVE Online in more detail.
But (as I understand it), Gabe points out that because EVE Online is not a crypto game with real money in/out flows, the conclusions we can draw from such a study are — at best — indirect.
As his second point makes clear, if EVE Online immediately switched to a crypto-based economy, it would collapse because there are fewer long term incentives to holding value.
Adding crypto would also destroy the delicate equilibrium that’s built up over the years in terms of how players spend money and time without any expectation of material rewards in return.
In that sense, EVE Online’s pre-eminent status comes from how its complexity enables its community to flex their status purely through the combination of their skill and time/money spent, and the in-game rewards thus accrued.
And this is the key point for any blockchain game and its economy.
You are fundamentally designing something based on real money flows and that means for most of your audience, there’s always more of an incentive to cash out now than wait around for 1) either more value later or 2) different types of long term value i.e. governance or implicit status.
Sadly, I think this is will be the main issue impacting blockchain games over the coming six months.
There’s such pressure from guilds to onboard their scholars into the next ‘successful’ P2E game that the economies of these games will quickly collapse under the pressure because they won’t be able to build up implicit status as a counter-balance to sell-side pressure.
Indeed, the only reason Axie Infinity has been able to sustain its economy as well as it has done is the fact the game was in development for two years before $SLP was launched, with $AXS launched 13 months ago.
And despite such a staggered deployment, numerous economic tweaks, and a strong community of long term asset hodlers, the download pressure on the $SLP USD price remains acute.
In that context — and for all its checks-and-balances — Ubisoft’s approach to NFTs seems much more sensible, at least in the short term.
Funding news
Forte, Griffin Gaming Partners and Solana Venture have announced they will invest $150 million in blockchain games that use the Solana blockchain.
Griffin Gaming Partners was the lead investor in Forte’s $185 million Series A round. In total Forte has raised $900 million for its blockchain gaming platform, so in a sense some of the $100 million is recycled capital.
Solana Ventures has also been very active in recent months, investing in at least nine game projects. Together with Lightspeed Venture Partners and FTX, it also announced a similar $100 million fund for games on Solana in November.
Global venture accelerator Brinc has closed a $30 million Series B round and also gained $100 million to invest in startups using its accelerator.
Following on from their collaboration over the Launchpad Luna venture earlier in 2021, Animoca Brands led the round. As well as games, Brinc focuses on sectors such as food and water security, healthcare, climate change, urbanization, connectivity, transportation and financial inclusion.
US game developer Moonray PBC has raised $3.5 million for its Bitcoin-based RPG Moonray, which uses the Stacks smart contract technology.
Animoca Brand led the round with participation from GBV Capital, Metavest Capital, LD Capital and Lucid Blue Ventures.
NFT soccer game CyBall has announced a $1.8 million seed round, which was led by Bitkraft.
Animoca Brands and Ascensive Assets also participated as did gaming guilds Merit Circle and Yield Guild Gaming. CyBall plans to build out a scholarship system it labels CyLoans to tap into the key P2E market.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out in terms of the argument made above.
Product news
Reality Gaming’s Dr Who Worlds Apart is launching Early Access for Founder Token holders today.
The game will be available for PC/Mac but won’t have any blockchain elements integrated. Founder Tokens currently priced at $2,500 on the game’s marketplace.
Anticipated game Big Time has opened its marketplace for registrations. To celebrate, it’s selling the last of its VIP passes, which will provide the first access to the game.
These range from $799 for a Jade pass, up to $5,900 for the Gold pass, which will enable the earliest access. Previous pass drops are also available on OpenSea as NFTs on the Polygon blockchain.
Nexon America has announced it’s added the ability to use cryptocurrencies to buy in-game items in PC games including MapleStory, KartRider, Mabinogi, Vindictus and V4.
The functionality comes from an integration with BitPay and there will be caps on player expenditure. Supported currencies include Bitcoin, Dogecoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash and various stablecoins.
NFT news
Why (some) CryptoPunks owners are selling up and moving to Bored Ape Yacht Club.
A nice visualisation of sell price distribution for The Sandbox. About 3% of listings are under 3.5 ETH and another 6% under 4 ETH.
Airdrop news
Ever registered an account on DappRadar? Or used more than 10 Ethereum dapps ever? Then check out DappRadar’s $RADAR token airdrop. You’re likely to be able to claim tokens (although you’ll have to pay the gas).