Instead of our usual Friday weekly roundup, today we look back across 2023; a year that started in the shadow of FTX’s implosion — which particularly impacted the Solana ecosystem — but which ended in boom times, especially for the Solana ecosystem. How times change!
Certainly Solana-based projects such as Star Atlas, which maintained their composure and vision through such trying times are to be applauded and well deserve their financial boost.
More generally, other trends — as highlighted in the granular news below — included traditional game companies such as Zynga, Ubisoft and Square Enix announcing and launching product. As in 2022, South Korean game companies such as Nexon, Line and Krafton were in the vanguard, especially in terms of capital committed.
What blockchain to deploy on was a crucial question for many games in 2023 thanks to the rise of both general purpose L2 chains and specific gaming infrastructure such as Ronin and Immutable. Pixels’ success moving from Polygon to Ronin was a particular highlight.
Sponsored by Hiro Capital: investing 📈 in the future 🔮 of gaming 🎮
Distribution channels were also much discussed with Epic Games Store ending the year as the place to be for blockchain PC games, while other options include Ultra and Hyperplay. Meanwhile Apple and Google’s app stores seem to be a growing opportunity, as demonstrated by the relative success of Mythical Games’ NFL Rivals.
Of course, these trends are not complete and most will continue to shape the industry into 2024.
January
Yuga Labs' Dookey Dash launches
Limit Break announces ERC721C standard for enforced royalties
Plai Labs raises $32 million for Champions Ascension
February
Kratos raises $20 million for Indian web3 gaming push
Dookey Dash golden key NFT winner sells it for $1.6 million
Check out a hour-long discussion of everything that happened in 2023 below.
March
CCP Online raises $40 million for blockchain EVE Online game
Mocaverse NFTs mint out
Square Enix announces Symbiogenesis
Nexon announces MapleStory Universe
Immutable and Polygon partner for zkEVM infrastructure
Sky Mavis announces first thirdparty games on its Ronin blockchain
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to GamesTX to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.