TonTon Games on the Telegram web3 opportunity

BCGW #184

My education around Telegram gaming continues in episode 184 of Blockchain Gaming World, in which I spoke with TonTon Games’ CEO Danill Shcherbakov.

Set up as a game publisher earlier this year, TonTon is typical of the Telegram ecosystem in that Shcherbakov is an experienced tech entrepreneur but hasn’t previously worked in the game sector, although the company does have this through its other founders.

For Shcherbakov, however, he feels the opportunity around Telegram as a gaming platform is similar to that offered by the launch of the App Store or Facebook gaming. This is why TonTon is moving fast, with half a dozen games already out and another 10 due this year.

Its most successful release thus far is DRFT Party, a simple car-themed match-2 game which is going to get NFT skins via a lottery system. In turn, these NFTs will feed players into a related but deeper drag racing game.

Interestingly, Shcherbakov says he doesn’t believe all Telegram games should be using tokens as their main blockchain element, even though token airdrop mechanics have been the main marketing meta.

Partly that’s because of their inherent virality but aside from games, another area in which TonTon hopes to innovate is building out a UA network, which will enable it to scale its releases effectively, as well as potentially being another revenue source.

So I got lots of good insights from our chat and even if my skepticism around the long term viability of Telegram gaming remains, it is being modified with every conversation I have.

You can check out a transcription of the podcast via BlockchainGamer.biz and if you want to play DRFT Party, feel free to use my referral code (or not!).

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Calendar

• Deadline to collect Mythical Forest rewards — 7th November

• Ragnarok: Monster World play-to-airdrop ends — 7th November

• Next FOMC meeting: 50bps cut now not expected — 7th November

• Ronin MMORPG Lumiterra launches its second CBT — 11th November

• Blast Royale’s NOOB token goes live — 13th November

• The Sandbox Alpha Season 4 ends — 17th December

Funding news

• Singapore-based 81Ravens has announced a $4.5 million seed round, which was led by Japanese strategics Digital Hearts and GREE.

As well as working on its own esports platform, 81Ravens is also developing Paravox, an esport-centric 3v3 arena shooter, which is currently in open beta via Epic Games Store and expected to go live on Steam before the end of the year.

81Ravens claims it already has over 100,000 players. Further to the announcement, 81Ravens has also confirmed Paravox will deploy onto Solana.

Earlier in 2024, the game hosted its first esports tournament with 23 teams competing for a 100 million yen ($650,000) prize pool. A second tournament, which will have its finals in Japan, is scheduled for December.

Blankos Update news

• Today I found one new Blankos, taking the total unique characters up to 180. I also bought two NFTs so I only have 61 to collect. In other news, price discovery is slowly happening on the Mythical Market with the average floor price of a Blankos NFT dropping 15% to $62. (*This average excludes all NFTs priced >$1,000.)

Similarly, the nominal cost of buying all Blankos priced under $1,000 — that’s 159 of the 180 total — dropped to $9,770.

You can check out the data via this open spreadsheet.

Samurai Shodown Reboot news

• US outfit Mysten Labs continues to build out gaming as a key element of its Sui blockchain, which is seeing a resurgence of interest as its token hits an all-time-high. The latest announcement is that a new version of SNK’s 1993 weapon-based fighting game Samurai Shodown is coming to the blockchain, including with support for its forthcoming $600 PC handheld device SuiPlay0X1.

Samurai Shodown R is in-development with South Korea company LumiWave (previously called OnBuff) with participation from SNK. The game is described as a 3D MMORPG that will feature dynamic NFTs and its own token, which is backed through LumiWave’s INNO platform.