In the way that web3 often does you, I was planning to do a neat video and explainer about new web3 PC gaming store and aggregator HyperPlay, but ended up spending the day setting up a hardware wallet for the WAX blockchain.
The good news is that after a lot — LOT — of messing around, I have a beautifully functional Ledger device that’s currently holding 2% of a DEX liquidity pool for Alien Worlds’ TLM token — granted this is less impressive than it sounds but it pleases me.
Indeed, I have been surprisingly impressed how much better EOS-based blockchains work in terms of wallets infrastructure compared to Ethereum (although hopefully this will change with ERC4337: see Additional Links).
It’s certainly the best use of a Ledger wallet I’ve had to-date, shame EOS and WAX are increasingly legacy blockchains but maybe that’s why it worked — lindy!
As for HyperPlay — announced for ETH Denver — it wasn’t such a nice experience.
According to the press release, it “unites web2 and web3 games in a single marketplace, allowing gamers to quickly jump between their favorite franchises, with seamless wallet integration”.
Maybe in future but not yet.
The big vision is that HyperPlay will be its own distribution platform for web3 PC games — it currently lists over 20 PC and browser titles — as well as enabling users to access their Epic Game Store and GOG libraries from within it. I don’t have a GOG account but couldn’t manage to connect my Epic Game account.
Another big potential advantage is HyperPlay’s deep support for Metamask — thanks in part to ex-Metamask’s lead of operations Jacobc.eth’s involvement — but, once again, I couldn’t get my existing Metamask wallet to connect, at least via QR code.
Which isn’t to say HyperPlay won’t work, just that it’s currently only tentatively functional.
It’s also worth noting that there’s a decent number of similar products, ranging from Ultra and Flame to Elixir, HashUp, The Abyss, FNCY etc in various stages of liveness.
None yet have anything close to product market fit and I’m not convinced that such distribution platforms will be as valuable in web3 as in web2 because people are going to play fewer blockchain games.
If you’ve spent $1,000 in a web3 PC game, you’re locked in: you don’t need a launcher for other games. You’re totally committed to the game you’ve got $1k in.
But — rant over — I’ve checked, and I’ve still got 2% of WAX/TLM liquidity, so the day wasn’t a complete loss.
This Substack is sponsored by Hiro Capital: Lead investor for Telltale Games.
Funding news
Canadian web3 product analytics platform Helika has announced a $4 million seed round. The lead investor was Canadian outfit Diagram Ventures. Other investors included Sparkle Ventures, Fenbushi, Builder Capital and degens such as Sfermion and Big Brain Holdings.
Helika combines on-chain, in-game and social media activity to enable web3 game developers to build up a better picture of their players and audiences to make better strategic decisions around marketing and community engagement. Announced clients include Yuga Labs and TreasureDAO.
Dragons Go Head-to-head news
Solana-based squad auto-battler Eternal Dragons continues to roll out new elements during its ongoing Alpha with version 0.25 boasting the first PVP mode. This is backed with the first league tournament, which will end on Tuesday 7th March.
As well as this ELO-based league in which the relative standing of players determines the points rewarded, players can also share room codes to play against their friends.
It’s expected that various test tournaments will run over the coming weeks as bugs and other issues are ironed out before the first properly-rewarded tournament is launched.
Magic Eden Mint Madness news
In the buildup to GDC, Magic Eden is ramping up activity with its Mint Madness program, which will see a dozen gaming projects launching free mints via its platform.
Prime examples including Mystic Moose, which is launching the Champions characters for its auto chess battler Mojo Melee on Friday 3rd March.
Other mints worth watching include Legendary Heroes Unchained (N3twork), Blast Royale (First Light), Shrapnel (Neon) and Rogue Nation (Moonlit).
Most of these games are minting on Polygon and the top 10 traders of Polygon NFTs on Magic Eden during this period will share a prize pool of 20,000 MATIC ($24,000), including a 4,500 MATIC ($5,400) first prize.
Rentals On Polygon news
Thirdparty NFT rental service reNFT has launched on Polygon, enabling any such project to add its web-based rental system into their game. It was previously live on Ethereum and Avalanche, supporting titles such as Castle Crush and Galaxy Fight Club.
Personally, I’ve messed around with it for Castle Crush, although either I or it did something wrong as the NFT I attempted to set for renting appears to be locked in a never-ending-cycle.
Aside from my travails, however, back in October 2022, reNFT claimed it had handled over 20,000 NFT rentals for the game.
Certainly it will be interesting to see how adoption happens alongside the growing interesting in Polygon as a chains with a lot of emerging games such as Hunters On-Chain and Mojo Melee — see Magic Eden Mint Madness news.
Blockchain For Sport Fans news
Chiliz is probably best known for its its Socios.com project, which has dozen of deals with professional soccer clubs, offering exclusive club tokens for loyalty programs. But it’s also just launched its own Chiliz Chain mainnet and in conjunction with Jump Crypto has announced a $50 million ecosystem fund.
Currently focused on sport NFTs collections and fan engagement projects, it says it will soon reveal another set of projects including games and DeFi apps.
Additional Links
Com2uS’ new XPLA blockchain is going to add support for its high profile web2 PC game Summoners War: Chronicles in July.
The account abstraction standard ERC4337 has been passed, potentially enabling all Ethereum wallets (and all EVM chains that support the standard) to become smart contract wallets, with functionality including password recovery. Dull but also potentially massive for mainstream onboarding.
Have you installed crypto security layer Stelo for Metamask yet? If not, why not?