Original source: flowie, ChainCatcher
GameFi, which has been dormant for a long time, has recently entered a moment of concentrated growth, and the crypto community has begun to clamor for GameFi Summer. In addition to still having high hopes for Gamefi to accelerate the large-scale adoption of encryption, crypto users also believe that in the upcoming 2024, GameFi, as the sector with the most financing in the entire Web3 primary market in the last cycle, has to hand over its report card to investors. .
According to data provided by Immutable on the X platform, Web3 game financing will account for 62% of the total financing in the Web3 industry in 2022. DappRadar data shows that in the three quarters of 2023, the blockchain gaming field attracted US$739 million, US$973 million, and US$600 million in investment respectively. In other words, after the collapse of chain games in 2021, even in the crypto winter, capital has not given up its heavy position in Web3 games.
But despite the high hopes for GameFi, there are still many crypto users who have poured cold water on this GameFi Summer expectation. Coingecko counted games in the GameFi market over the past five years, and it said that about 2,127 web3 games ended in failure, accounting for 75.5% of the total number of games launched (2,817). In other words, 3 out of 4 web3 games are inactive.
In addition to the extremely high failure rate and even rugs, some crypto users said that compared to DeFis revolution in some traditional financial scenarios, GameFi seems not to be able to find much subversion of traditional games. After play to era, although there are many new concepts in GameFi, most of them are more name than reality.
GameFi or Web3 games have always been popular in the primary market. After being dormant for nearly two years, is the recent popularity a false one or a real one? How are the projects that received large sums of financing in the last cycle doing now? Already?
Why is it said that GameFi Summer is coming?
Since mid-October, there has been an undercurrent in the GameFi sector. On the one hand, many new and old projects have begun to take action intensively, and token prices have risen intensively. First, in mid-October, the 3A chain game BIGTIME increased nearly 20 times two days after it was listed on OKX, drawing the attention of some crypto users back to GameFi.
Subsequently, some new and old chain game projects also began to develop frequently. At the end of October, the RPG masterpiece Illuvium announced that it would be put into public beta in the first quarter of 2024, and later announced that it would be listed on the Epic Games Store and cooperate with the e-sports club Team Liquid. 100% of all revenue in the ecosystem will be returned to ILV stakers. Its native token ILV has risen from $49 to $109 in one month, an increase of more than 123%.
The Web3 game platform Immutable announced a partnership with the game giant Ubisoft. The price of Immutables native token rose from US$0.6 to US$1.12 within a week, an increase of over 80% in 7 days. According to L2B EAT data, Immutable X’s TVL also exceeded US$200 million last week, with a 7-day increase of 40.71%. (Currently down to $182 million). At the same time, the entry of traditional game giants such as Unisoft has also improved the playability of chain games and brought more possibilities.
Gala Games, the former king of chain gaming platforms, also announced in early November that it had signed a strategic partnership with DWF Labs to accelerate the adoption of L1. Its token Gala has increased by more than 30% in the past month.
Axie and STEPN, the leading P2E projects in the last round, have also made a lot of big news recently. The Ronin game side chain created by Sky Mavis, the parent company of Axie Infinity, has brought a large number of new users online with the migration of P2E MMO games Pixels and Zoids Wild Arena. Ronin’s data shows explosive growth, with the number of active user addresses in early November increasing sixfold from the previous month. Axie has partnered with Philippine taxi app Grab to provide additional benefits to local users. AXS token price increased by 20% in one month.
The STEPN development team also announced the launch of its second game, Gas Hero, in November and officially launched community testing on November 27. Star Atlas, the former star chain game on the Solana chain, brings a new gaming experience to players by introducing a new game mode and combining it with elements such as cryptocurrency and NFT. The monthly increase of ATLAS token reached 132%.
TreasureDAO, which created the phenomenon-level game The Beacon at the end of last year, recently announced plans to develop its own public game chain and said it would use MAGIC as a gas token.
As tokens in the chain game sector have risen intensively, the total market value of chain games has increased by more than 10% in the past week, and the current total market value is nearly US$1.5 billion. From the perspective of primary market investment and financing, according to RootData data, investment in the GameFi sector is also picking up in October this year. The amount of financing in October exceeded US$100 million, an increase of 61% from US$67 million in September. The amount of financing in August was less than US$15 million. Among them, in addition to Animoca Brands, which received US$50 million from NEOM, an investment fund led by the Saudi Crown Prince, Shrapnel, known as the chain game version of CS, received US$20 million in Series A financing. In November, Metaverse game MATR1X received US$10 million in Series A 2 financing, with participation from Folius Ventures, SevenX Ventures and ABCDE Capital.
In addition to some actual actions in the blockchain game sector, there is also a basic logic behind the high voice of crypto users for this wave of Gamefi Summer. In the last cycle, the Gamefi primary market spent too much money, and many projects The financing amounted to tens of millions of dollars, but in the end there was almost no splash. As the crypto market gradually turns from bear to bull, Gamefis secondary market is bound to perform better with a large number of game public tests in Q1 and Q2 of 2024 to give investors some explanation.
After P2E, blockchain games are divided into Web2.5 games and full-chain games
After the Gamefi crash wave at the end of 2021, the encryption market gradually entered a deep bear, and Gamefi gradually fell into silence. There are almost no play-to-earn paradigm innovations like Axie, Stepn, etc., but there are also some small splashes, such as the Free to Own mode based on NFT, the emphasis on more playability-oriented AAA RPG games, and the addition of a certain degree of Bet to Earn/Skill to Earn etc. for gambling and competitive purposes.
For example, in August last year, the blockchain game Limit Break announced the completion of a US$200 million financing led by Paradigm, and also proposed a new model of “Free to Own”. Although this model has been questioned, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao also tweeted sarcastically: Venture Capital (VC) just created a new term: Free-to-own. If everything in the world will be free, why should we To work so hard...it wont be free forever. Work hard! But DigiDaigaku, the NFT series released by Limit Break at that time, once ranked first in terms of transaction volume within 24 hours on OpenSea, and the floor price peaked for a time It rose to around 18 ETH.
Since Limit Break and DigiDaigaku briefly became popular. At the end of last year, The Beacon, a game incubated by TreasureDAO, also became an instant hit. It can be said to be one of the hottest chain games in this bear market. Within a week, more than 10,000 players entered The Beacon, and more than 17,000 copies of the Founding Game Character priced at $40 were sold. Many YouTubers also introduced the gameplay live. A big reason for The Beacons popularity is that its demo has added a lot of playability. The dungeon challenges it has set up have new content every day, allowing users to play chain games not only to obtain airdrops, but also to obtain The fun of playing the game itself.
In October this year, BigTime, a 3A chain game, became popular due to the astonishing increase in its game token BIGTIME. Even the pre-season invitation code appeared on the second-hand e-commerce platform Xianyu.
In general, since the collapse of chain games at the end of 2021, chain games have tried to get rid of the simple Play to earn label and transform into a play and earn model by increasing playability to cultivate a group of real game players. Throughout 2022, 3A-level chain game narratives were first born, and many so-called 3A-level chain games appeared, such as Bigtime, Delysium, and Abyss World. By 2023, the narrative trend has turned to full-chain games, and a number of projects such as Dark Forest, Loot, and Arena of Faith have emerged that are committed to becoming full-chain games. Many crypto VCs such as Paradigm have issued articles stating that they are optimistic about the development of full-chain games.
EMC_Labs researcher @0x Ning 0x mentioned in summarizing the fundamentals of Web3 games this year that since this year, the industry has gradually divided Web3 games into Web2.5 games and full-chain games. In the article Why should we invest in Matr1x?, ABCDE Capital also divided the current Web3 games into Web2.5 games and full-chain games.
@0x Ning 0x explained that Web2.5 games refer to traditional chain games that put game assets on the chain, put the core game logic off the chain, and have no game community governance mechanism. ABCDE believes that Web2.5 games emphasize Play Earn, weaken the component of Earn and increase the proportion of Play at the same time. The full-chain game is better understood. @0x Ning 0x means that it refers to a new chain game that puts all game assets and core game logic on the chain and has a DAO governance mechanism. ABCDE said that the narrative of this track is more grand and more native to the blockchain, but it is still in an extremely early stage. Similar to DeFi in 2018, it still takes several years to iterate and develop.
However, despite the emergence of new narratives and projects with wealth effects on the chain gaming circuit, and the recent frequent moves in chain gaming projects, and the good price growth of tokens, there are still doubts about whether chain gaming will be a good candidate in the next round of bull market. dForce founder @mindaoyang mentioned, Full-chain games are still AW. Apart from changing the words, they have not yet given people the wow transparency of DeFis Uniswap. Chain games still face three contradictions: Playability The conflict between gender and financial attributes; the conflict between developer minting rights and the decentralization of the token model; and the unequal status of players and developers, with more players and fewer good developers.
Judging from the current chain game projects, there is indeed not much paradigm innovation in gameplay and economic models, and it is still difficult to get rid of the death spiral pattern of skyrocketing and plummeting.
How are the Web3 games that have raised a lot of money progressing?
Although Web3 games have been relatively quiet in this bear market, financing in this field has always occupied an important position in the investment and financing of the Web3 industry. ChainCatcher counts some representative projects that have received large-scale financing (more than US$10 million) from well-known capital from January 2022 to the present and their recent developments.
Animoca Brands
The main group that has received over US$100 million in financing is Animoca Brands, which has received nearly US$600 million in financing from 2022 to now. Recently, Animoca Brands has launched a strategic cooperation with TON. Animoca Brands strategically invested in the TON ecosystem and became the largest verifier of the TON blockchain. The TON-based game infrastructure project TON Play provides the infrastructure and solutions needed to launch new game projects on TON, and enables Animoca Brands more than 400 Web3 project portfolios to be smoothly ported directly to Telegram.
Proof of Play
Proof of Play is a Web3 game studio. It completed US$33 million in financing led by Greenoaks Capital and a16z Crypto in September this year. Proof of Play currently has its first game, Pirate Nation. In the game Pirate Nation, players can collect and send pirates on adventures to collect crafting materials, treasures and pirate gold. Pirates can gain experience and upgrade through multiple adventures.
Mythical Games
Mythical Games is a gaming technology studio that creates world-class products that drive consumer adoption of distributed ledger technology through games. Mythical Games received $37 million in Series C financing in June this year, led by Scytale Ventures, with participation from Animoca Brands, PROOF, MoonPay, and a16z Crypto. Recently, Mythical Games launched the blockchain-based video game NFL Rivals on Apple and Android devices, and released another mobile game called Nitro Nation World Tour.
CCP Games
CCP Games received US$40 million in financing led by a16z Crypto in March this year. CCP Games CCP Games is an Icelandic game development company founded in 1997, best known for its modern science fiction space MMO game EVE Online. After this financing, CCP Games plans to use it to produce a new AAA blockchain game based on the Eve Online universe.
Gunzilla Games
Gunzilla Games is a game developer currently developing Off The Grid (OTG), a cyberpunk battle royale 2.0 game. In June last year, Gunzilla Games completed US$46 million in financing, led by Republic Capital, with participation from Griffin Gaming Partners, Animoca Brands, Jump Crypto and others.
Wildcard
Wildcard is a Web3-based video game for gamers, fans, and collectors. In June last year, Wildcard completed a $46 million round of financing led by Paradigm. In April this year, Wildcard sold 4,444 Wildpasses on Magic Edens Launchpad. This is the first digital asset released by Wildcard. This digital asset will provide a unique opportunity to access the Wildcard Universe.
Irreverent Labs
In May last year, Irreverent Labs received $40 million in Series A financing from a16z Crypto, Solana Ventures, Infinity Ventures Crypto and others. Irreverent Labs, led by Rahul Sood, an esports veteran and founder of gaming platform Unikrn, is launching its first NFT-earning cockfighting game MechaFightClub.
Jadu
Jadu is a Web3 augmented reality platform that is building a world-class AR game where players will use Jetpacks and Hoverboards to travel through real-world locations in search of rare NFTs in the game. In April last year, Jadu completed a $36 million Series A financing led by Bain Capital Crypto. In February this year, Jadu announced that users can register to use it. Currently, according to its official website, Jadu can be downloaded on the App store and Google play.
Matr1x
Matr1x is a metaverse brand that plans to build the Matr1x brand through self-developed high-quality games or cooperation with third parties, game IP development cooperation, and global e-sports events. Matr1x will interpret its game trilogy (Cyber Earth - Mars Immigration - Interstellar Exploration) through three large-scale games with a unified world view: Matr1x FIRE (first-person shooter), Matr1x WAR (shooting + MMORPG) and Matr1x EVOLUTION (SOC) . Matr1x recently announced that it has received US$10 million in financing from Folius Ventures, SevenX, ABCDE and others. In August this year, Matr1x FIRE launched Alpha testing and airdropped tens of millions of FIRE tokens to test users.
After the financing was announced, the floor price of MATR1Xs NFT series - MATR1X 2061 once rose to 2.65 ETH. MATR1X is launching another platform-level NFT, MATR1X KUKU. KUKU enjoys the economic benefits of MATR1X creators and the advanced rights and interests of the MATR1X platform.
SHRAPNEL（SHRAP）
Shrapnel is a competitive multiplayer FPS game created by a team of top AAA game and blockchain project experts in the industry. Last year it completed $7 million in financing through token sales, with participation from Dragonfly and Three Arrows Capital. Recently, Neon Machine, the development game studio behind it, received another US$20 million in financing. Shrapnel is scheduled to launch for the first time in December for paying customers, with a full release as a free-to-play game in 2024.
On November 8, the game was also launched on Bitget. Its launch price was US$0.03, and later soared to US$0.19, an increase of more than 533%. However, as the amount of financing has increased recently, problems have arisen within Shrapnel. Neon Machine has filed lawsuits with multiple investors, claiming that it is trying to seize control of the company and its treasury.
Pahdo Labs
Pahdo Labs is developing Halcyon Zero, an isometric action RPG set in an anime-style ethereal world. Pahdo Labs mission is to foster a virtual world built by players. The upcoming game will enable players to create their own anime-style worlds through tools enhanced by AI or procedural generation, bringing creativity and social features to the forefront of anime role-playing games. In September this year, Pahdo Labs completed a $15 million Series A financing led by a16z Crypto.
Mahjong Meta
Mahjong Meta is a Web3 Mahjong competitive community created by former Tencent and NetEase employees. In August this year, Mahjong Meta completed US$12 million in financing led by Dragonfly and Folius Ventures. Currently, users log in to the official website to play games and participate in the Mahjong Masters.
Illuvium（ILV）
Illuvium is an open-world RPG adventure game based on the Ethereum blockchain that allows players to collect, trade and battle NFT assets. In May this year, Illuvium announced the completion of $10 million in financing from Framework Ventures.
Recently, Illuvium announced that it will conduct a public beta in the first quarter of 2024, and later announced that it will be listed on the Epic Games Store and has reached a cooperation with the e-sports club Team Liquid. 100% of all revenue in the ecosystem will be returned to ILV stakers.
Azra Games
Azra Games is a blockchain game company that aims to create a mainstream collectible battle RPG. In February this year, Azra Games completed a US$10 million seed round of funding, led by a16z, with participation from NFX, Coinbase Ventures, Play Ventures and Franklin Templeton. Azra plans to release the first installment of the game Legions Legends later this year.
Angelic / Metaverse Game Studios
Metaverse Game Studios is a blockchain game development studio, and its game Angelic is a narrative strategy role-playing game with a dark science fiction theme. In March last year, Angelic/Metaverse Game Studios completed $10 million in financing co-led by Animoca Brands and Solana Ventures.
In addition to the above Web3 game projects that have received large amounts of financing in the past year or two, the aforementioned Star Atlas, Ronin Network, Treasure DAO, including the new game Gas Hero launched by the STEPN development team, are also worthy of focus.
