Continuing the theme of recent emails, which have been banging on about how many actually decent blockchain games are coming in 2023, I thought I should try and place that trend within some data.
So I’ve broken out my investment list in terms of every game that’s raised more than $30 million of funding: there are 14 in total.
Filtered in terms of the date of their most recent funding round, I then categorized developers in terms of their experience, both in terms of making games and as an existing development team. Neatly these categories split 50:50.
I’d also point out that — as expected — the experienced teams appear to have been more efficient in terms of managing the development process. We’ll have to see if this is reflected in the eventual quality too.
The final piece of data was the status of the game, which isn’t always easy to ascertain, but with the exception of 22cans’ Legacy — about which I could find nothing — and CCP’s EVE Online reimagining — which has only just been announced — the majority of the projects appear to be in some form of alpha testing, with the likes of Illuvium and Champions Ascension fairly advanced in terms of available product.
As for what we’d expect be the outcome from these 14 games — both in terms of entertainment and return on investment: they have attracted over $900 million of funding between them — that will be an interesting point to ponder the closer projects get to release. Certainly it seems likely some will fail as a direct outcome of having too much funding.
For me, the most exciting ones are
The Wildcard Alliance — with its vision to build out an engaging spectator esport,
Champions Ascension — which has impressed me with its thoughtful mixture of high concept, gameplay and blockchain integration, and
DigiDaigaku — because, well, Gabe Leydon.
Of course, some might say I’m being too conservative in expecting the more established teams to perform the best. But my gut feeling is that making your first game is hard enough without it also being your first blockchain game.
Still, I’m happy to be proven wrong with Goals, Irreverent Labs and Parallel looking like the most likely ‘inexperienced’ candidates to pull off something inspiring.
This Substack is sponsored by Hiro Capital: Investing in the future of gaming
Calendar
The Sandbox starts its Mega City 3 land sales — 11th May
Legendary: Heroes Unchained launches its closed alpha — 12th May
Sui launch game Cosmocadia’s first mint — 14th May
Gala Games replaces its v1 token with v2 via airdrop — 15th May
Sui’s first launch games go live — 15th May
Ascenders starts its land sale — 18th May
More Ultra news
Steam-on-blockchain PC game distribution platform Ultra has launched its non-custodial Chrome extension Ultra wallet.
This acts in conjunction with the Ultra PC client, which has an integrated wallet for holding the platform’s UOS native token and Uniq NFTs. But using the Chrome extension, users can hold these assets in a highly accessible manner but with the same functionality in terms of features such as buying UOS using fiat on-ramps.
It also means applications that use the Ultra blockchain can interact with users in a more convenient manner. One such is the new Ultra Is Life website, which as well as acting as a community hub, also acts a dashboard and trading interface for Uniq marketplace data in terms of transactions and wallet activity across different NFT collections.
Axie Infinity Goes Again news
Axie Infinity Origins has started its Season 4 event. As with previous seasons, activity is incentivized by AXS tokens with $80,000-worth available to be distributed in terms of leaderboard position in the coming weeks.
Alongside Season 4 come a bunch of changes including the ability for players to boost their starter Axies, which is an experiment to see how the game’s future progression system may end up working.
Another addition is the integration of the esports mode within the main game client. Activity in the esports mode won’t impact players’ positions in the Season 4 event.
Breaking Out The Amber news
Romanian-headquartered full service game development agency Amber has partnered up with new gaming and metaverse blockchain Lamina1 as part of its early access program. Known for working with clients ranging from Animoca to Disney, Sony, and Epic Games in traditional gaming, Amber will offer its services for blockchain development via its newly-formed Amber Merlin studio.
In addition, Amber is working with Lamina1 to create an original project that it says will “combine blockchain, AI and composable metaverse concepts in an exciting new transmedia IP”.
Additional Links
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Blur’s Blend lending protocol has generated $95 million of loans in its first 10 days, with half of that generated by the Azuki NFT collection. Hope not everyone’s using it to ape into memecoins.
Some say ‘keep Bitcoin pure’ but others say Ordinals and BRC20 tokens are “a catalyst for adoption”. Looks like an existential fight is brewing.
Earn Wheelcoin by walking, cycling or taking the bus