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It has been one hell of a week for Web3 gaming!
We have seen major game updates and announcements across the ecosystem. Further, the capital injection into this space doesn’t seem to stop anytime soon.
That said, let’s get started with the weekly wrap-up.
Game Updates
Yuga Labs Launches Dooky Dash: The game is well received by the Ape community. It has great graphics and a smooth gameplay loop that is keeping players engaged. The excitement around this game has surged the floor price of sewer passes to more than 2 ETH. People are buying tier-4 passes for better performance to secure top rankings.
The Sandbox Launches Lunar New Year Event: The famous metaverse platform has launched a New Year campaign with exciting rewards and mystery boxes. The event started on Jan 18th and will end on Feb 28th. In this month, registered players have to complete 130 quests to get a share of the reward pool. Those who are landowners and own Avatar Pass get extra rewards as well.
Splinterlands Reveals New Plans For 2023: Splinterlands has amazing things planned out for this year. From introducing soulbound reward cards to SPS staking, players are in a complete makeover of the game. There will also be changes to game mechanics related to battles.
Big Time Releases Airdrop Plans: There will be a total of 108,000 mystery boxes distributed to the active players of Big Time. The rewards will be given based on how many points and collectibles a Big Time’s account has at the time of snapshot. Also, the airdrop won’t happen in one go. It will take eight months for all mystery boxes to be distributed. Check out more details here.
Champions Ascension Reveals Dates for Free Mint: The highlight anticipated combat game that is currently in pre-alpha stage is launching a 10K free mint collection. The NFTs will feature the main characters of the game called Elementals. For the mint, the team went with multiple whitelists who will be guaranteed a minting spot.
InfiniGods Reveals its Game InfiniMerge: You can now start playing InfiniMerge by simply creating an account. And it’s completely free! The game is set in Ancient Greek landscape and gives a fresh look to puzzle games. It has already reached 1000 active gamers with incredible retention rates.
Ecosystem Updates
Stardust Adds Avalanche for Scaling Game Development: Stardust and Avalanche gaming are joining forces to support Web2 game developers and studios to transition to Web3, and seamlessly integrate ownership of game items with NFTs. Both parties also decided to launch an accelerator program to help navigate Web3 for game developers.
Courtside VC Raises $100M Fund with Focus on Gaming: Despite the funding winter, the Courtside VC group has raised their third fund with total committed funds of $100 million. They plan to deploy funds into companies building at the intersection of sports, lifestyle, and gaming.
Neopets Raises $4 million For Building a P2E Metaverse: Neopets is a modern version of its original game that garnered millions of players. It is now planning to scale a 3D metaverse with new characters and adventures. The funding round was led by Polygon Ventures, Avalanche Blizzard Fund, Hashkey Capital, and IDG Capital.
Intella X Raises $12 million For its Web3 Gaming Platform: Intella X is a platform aiming to make blockchain gaming more accessible. It has a marketplace, launchpad, and wallet that is suitable for game environments. With this fresh funding, the team wants to speed-up development and onboard more games.
Createra Raises $10 million to Boost Metaverse Engine: If you’re a creator in the metaverse, you should pay attention to Createra. It is a UGC platform empowering creators to turn their work into tradeable NFT assets. This makes it much easier to popular Web3 games as game item creation can be outsourced.
Ancient8 Partners with Pro Gamer DAO: Ancient8 is expanding its gaming community by forming a game alliance with Pro Games DAO, gaming guild to optimize performance.
Interesting Reads
Trikon has published a blog summarizing some of the insights from the latest BGA 2022 survey and report. It is a great read if you want to understand what progress we made last year and what challenges we faced to drive adoption.
Aurory is one of the biggest games building on Solana. But it can get overwhelming for a first-timer. So check out this amazing thread by Devmons gaming that helps you get better at the game.
An interesting take on the relationship problem in blockchain gaming. It mainly highlights what financialization is doing to the relationship between gamers and game creators.
A member of the Azuki garden has written a great thread on how NFTs blend into gaming and why games can drive mainstream adoption. He also clearly states what it will take to see a major shift in Web3 gaming.
Vader has put out a thread that does an excellent job at covering the Dookey Dash game. He makes a case that the game is a success for Yuga despite the entry barrier being so high.