Look at Gaming #400 | 8.05.2024


GM! Back to the grind on Monday!

Short one this week. Game Informer, the publication that's been around for 33 years, is shutting down. GameStop closed Game Informer's doors last Friday August 2nd. Game Informer is a source that I use for the Look At Gaming. RIP.

On the other end of the spectrum, Microsoft and Activision Blizzard are opening a new studio with the purpose of creating Double-A franchise spinoffs. Recall that Riot did a similar move previously called Riot Forge but that initiative got shut down a few years after it launched.

In brighter news, the industry-wide layoffs seem to have slowed, with a cautiously optimistic uptick in employment. Here are some stats. 8k layoffs in 2022, 10k in 2023, and 11.5k so far in 2024.

Lastly, The Pokémon Company pulled down $10B revenue in 2023 from merch and licensed goods. Lifetime merchandising revenue is $92B. And it's only the 7th biggest licensor in 2023. Unlike the declining revenue numbers we see in the games industry since the pandemic, Pokémon licensing revenue keeps climbing higher -- though it did drop in 2023. $8.5B in 2021, $11.6B in 2022, and $10B this year.

There's also some great pieces in the Knowledge Hub section about monetization and skill-based player matching.

Catch y'all next week!

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⚡ Spotlight 🤩
GameStop shuts down Game Informer | GamesIndustry.biz

Report: Microsoft and Activision Blizzard launch studio focused on franchise spinoffs | GameDeveloper

Game job layoff forecast is getting better, with job cuts slowing dramatically in July | GamesBeat

The Pokémon Company caught $10.8 billion from merch and licenced goods last year | PGBiz


🌊 MARKET 📞
GameStop shuts down Game Informer | GamesIndustry.biz

A pivotal online hub for ROM hacks goes news-only after two decades | TheVerge

The future of mobile market intelligence | PGBiz

Esports World Cup halftime report: 175M+ hours watched, 60K tickets sold | GamesBeat

The opportunity costs of NFT madness are still being paid | GamesIndustry.biz

Keeping games secure is like a battle royale | Akama

Game job layoff forecast is getting better, with job cuts slowing dramatically in July | GamesBeat

Gamescom Asia: We want to give Southeast Asian developers a platform to shine | GamesIndustry.biz

A small games manifesto | GameDeveloper


💎 Deep Dives 🔎
Let the Games Begin | KonvoyVentures

Luxury gaming | SuperJoostPlaylist


🌈 Platforms 🏠
Report: Microsoft and Activision Blizzard launch studio focused on franchise spinoffs | GameDeveloper


✨ Web 3⃣ + Meta 🌐
Miladycraft: The Grand Remilia Ball and 'Network Spirituality' in Minecraft | Decrypt.gg


🧠 Knowledge Hub 📘
This online puzzle community has a fresh twist on battle passes | TheVerge

SocialPeta Partnered with Liftoff to Release the Guide to Growing Chinese Gaming Apps Overseas | PGBiz

Game Monetisation Design: Strategies, Trends, and Best Practices with Oscar Clark | PGBiz

Inworld AI adds localization for Mandarin, Japanese and Korean | GamesBeat

Win Streak: the Gift That Keeps on Giving | DeconstructorOfFun

Deprioritizing skill-based matchmaking turned Call of Duty into The Bad Place | GameDeveloper

Level Design Postmortem: Sixth Street (Zenless Zone Zero) | GameDeveloper


💲 Fundraising 🤑
Games studio 2weeks has raised $1.25m in pre-seed funding | PGBiz

NCSoft invests $3.5 million in Swedish studio Moon Rover Games | PGBiz

Dstlry raises $5M for digital comics publishing and marketplace | GamesBeat

Dotplay obtains $1m in funding | GamesIndustry.biz


👾 Game & Stats Releases 📊
Valorant launches on consoles in select markets | GamesBeat

How Borderlands bridges the border of film and games — Randy Pitchford and Jamie Lee Curtis | GamesBeat

The Pokémon Company caught $10.8 billion from merch and licenced goods last year | PGBiz


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gg

✅ Gaming News
✅ Web3 Gaming Coverage

👋 Web3 Gaming Recap — Weekend + August 5

💎 Gaming Spotlight 🥜
• Matr1x Fire listed their token, $MAX on CEX exchanges like OKX and announced a pre-TGE burn of 20%. As of writing, the token is currently trading at $38.25m Market Cap | $225m FDV — Read More

🔄 Gaming Updates
• Loot Realms — Launched Lordship Bridge (Can bridge Realms to Starknet)
• DF Archon — Released Dark Forest Ares v0.1 r4: Union on Redstone
• Otherside — Releasing Otherside Development Kit on ApeChain (August 2024)
• HyperPlay — Launched HyperPlay Quests, their new in-game platform for real-world rewards
• Echelon — Hosting Uplink, an invite-only annual gaming-focused event during Token2049 Singapore
• BattleBound — Onboarded Krisma as the Director of Growth for their upcoming creature-collecting RPG
• Paima Studios — Announced Click & Moo, a decentralized idle game
• Cosmic Bomber — Launched the open beta of their casual multiplayer arcade game
• Battle Bears — PC & Mobile Global Launch (August 20)
• BAG.win — Added slots, crash, blackjack, roulette and plinko to BAG
• zKorp — Launched mobile playable for zKube
• Notcoin — Introduced Not Games, a platform enabling game builders to deliver new experiences to Telegram users
• GOAT Gaming — Minted out their Genesis Goats NFT Collection
• Rumble Kong League — Introduced Playstyles, attribute enhancing specializations for the ecosystem

🔖 Gaming Reads
• Blocmates — Web3 Gaming is Inevitable: Don't Get Shaken Out Here
• Yijia (0xCurio) — Why I'm bullish on Duper as a Poker challenger
• Imran Khan (Alliance DAO) — PWAs are a fast & easy way to build a beta product w/ crypto-native features that bypasses App Store restrictions but the final product should be a native mobile app
• WASD — Weekly Read 8/2/2024
• MagicBlock — Announced winners of 3rd edition of the Solana Speedrun game jam
• Maximum Jailbreak — Fango 1000: An on-chain narrative game where players must tell stories, the best ones last forever, the worst ones are buried in mud
• Sejin — Building FriendTech Pokedex, a Gamified Trading Card Game
• MUD & Redstone Newsletter — Edition #39: Multi-namespace support, MUD <> reth compatibility, ZK MUD & more
• Game7 Dao — Announced their Credits Campaign Program to reward active & engaged players
• John Patten (Treasure DAO) — Early $MAGIC team members that leeched tokens have fully sold now

▶️ Gaming Watch/Listens
• GAM3S.GG — The Biggest Misconceptions about Web3 Gaming
• Venture Games — Episode 47: Phil Sanderson (Griffin Gaming Partners)
• Game7 — From King of the Hill to Crisis: This CEO realized his company was Doomed (Playmint, David Amor)
• Naavik — Web3 Innovation w/ Mirai Labs
• EthCC — Friction Kills: Unburden users with chain services (HappyChain, Norswap)

💸 Gaming Fundraising
• Cartridge — Announced $7.5m Series A round led by BITKRAFT to further empower developers to build provable on-chain games & autonomous worlds

✅ Gaming Projects
• Echoes of Eldoria
• TxSpaces HQ
• Gud Game
• Altera AI
• Battue

hope helpful wuwu 😆💞

✅ Gaming News
✅ Web3 Gaming Coverage

👋 Web3 Gaming Recap — August 6

💎 Gaming Spotlight 🥜
• The Ronin Bridge suffered a potential MEV exploit earlier today which resulted in 2m USDC & 3,996 ETH being withdrawn. Since working w/ the white hats, 3,991 ETH has been returned. Bridge will remain paused and will undergo an audit before being reopened. A post-mortem will be issued next week — Read More

🔄 Gaming Updates
• Angelic — Launching their Strategy RPG Multiplayer Alpha Test (August 6)
• Unioverse — Released their interoperable game NFT Mint on Magic Eden (August 6)
• Axie Infinity — Origins PvE / Roguelike ETA (August 7)
• Blade Games — CoinPUPS game mission (August 7)
• AI Arena — Launching AI Arena Champion NFT Collection (August 8)
• Etherscape — Launching on Epic Games (August 16)
• Sequence — Announced that they are partnering with Ubisoft & Arbitrum to launch Captain Laswerhawk: THE GAME, a transmedia gaming adventure
• Apecoin — AIP Proposal #438 passes to establish a $10m Apecoin Ventures Fund together w/ Animoca Ventures who will match with $5m
• Hexacore — Launched their AGO Pass Mint on Magic Eden
• Gamecoin — Launched their newest game, "Hidden Objects" on Telegram

🔖 Gaming Reads
• Zenith — Rebranded from Autochessia to Zenith and will continue developing their Team Fight Tactics-inspired fully on-chain game
• BNB Chain — Announced the newest gaming projects building on BNB Chain (C WORLD, Karat Galaxy, MetaCollabWin & Seraph)
• TONX — Hosting the Future of TON GameFi: Insights
• Calc.eth (Loot Realms) — Loot Realms Monthly Updates
• MapleStory Universe — Pioneer Test Statistics: Part 1 (70% participation, 82% retention rate, 20% of Pioneers played 480min on avg daily)

▶️ Gaming Watch/Listens
• Prof G Conversations — Matthew Ball: Is It Time to Remember the Metaverse?

💸 Gaming Fundraising
• Curio — Announced their $8.7m raise to build Duper, a high stakes on-chain diplomacy game & also launched Season 1 which will run for 6 weeks

✅ Gaming Projects
• Byte Beasts
• Knivelty Labs
• Captain Laswerhawk Universe
• Seraph

hope helpful wuwu 😆💞

✅ Gaming News
✅ Web3 Gaming Coverage

Look at Gaming #401 | 8.12.2024

GM! Welcome back to another Monday y'all. Rise and grind.

Last week was quite a week especially with all the earnings reports. But there are only four items that I want to spotlight.

First is that video games is a $250B market. Yes yes there has been many of these types of figures thrown out but I like this one because it was authored by Joost van Dreunen (NYU professor and cofounder of SuperData). A 4.6% CAGR, which is so so compared to other digital entertainment sectors. 31% decrease in consle hardware sales as we wait for next-gen devices. And unsurprisingly, $115B in mobile spending, a little less than half of the market.

Additionally, in the AppsFlyer report, mobile gaming spent $29B on user acquisition in 2023. Recall that Monopoly Go spent $500M on ads so about 17% of the total global spend on ONE TITLE. Craziness. US remains the most competitive market to spend in. This combined with expensive development costs in the US could really mark the decline of US dominance. The most spend comes from match games, which ate 30% of the total global spend.

Third article is about how community actually drives monetization. I've always had a hunch that games with dense communities increase the propensity for players to spend but glad there's data behind it now. Specifically, 15% of monetized players would spend more if they are engaged in the community. That's meaningful.

Now that we are reminded that community is important, let's look at how to do it. From one of my FAVORITE publications, Decentralised.co dropped a banger piece on how to build a product-community flywheel. This is the holy grail for any product but particularly for web3 gaming as there are many more hooks in a game to get a player to engage with the community -- the genre, the lore/narrative, the art, the characters, etc.

That's it for this week y'all. And if you're short on time, I recommend at least reading the headlines of the earnings report to see where things are shaking out.

Catch you next week. XOXO. gg


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⚡ Spotlight 🤩
The $250 billion video games market | SuperJoostPlaylist

Gaming Apps spent $29B on user acquisition in 2023, 40% to U.S. | AppsFlyer

15% of monetised players spend more if actively engaged in a community | PGBiz

How To Build Product-Community Fly Wheels | Decentralised.co


🌊 MARKET 📞
Square Enix’s Q1 profits more than triple despite revenue decline | PGBiz

Take-Two reports $1.34 billion in net revenue teamed with a $262 million net loss | PGBiz

Nexon hits record Q2 revenue fueled by Dungeon & Fighter Mobile success | PGBiz

Unity outperforms guidance in Q2 2024 despite leadership changes | GamesBeat

Sony’s Gaming Q1 revenue grows 12% YoY, ups FY24 projections | GamesBeat

NCSoft profit bounces back with 59% of revenue on mobile but not all Lineage games are thriving | PGBiz

The Future of Guild Esports Appears Uncertain | TheFudgeReport

The $250 billion video games market | SuperJoostPlaylist

Games peripherals become a $10 billion market | GameDeveloper

Game developers are still feeling the pull of last-generation consoles | GameDeveloper

What exactly is a 'gamer' and why does it matter? | GameDeveloper

Amir Satvat: The situation with layoffs in the Gaming market is improving | GameDevReports

Gaming Apps spent $29B on user acquisition in 2023, 40% to U.S. | AppsFlyer


💎 Deep Dives 🔎
Mistplay: The Influence of social factors on the mobile gaming audience | GameDevReports

15% of monetised players spend more if actively engaged in a community | PGBiz

Global Gaming Report Q2 2024: M&A activity on the rise for the 3rd straight quarter | DrakeStar


🌈 Platforms 🏠
D23 2024: all the biggest trailers and news out of Disney’s biennial showcase | TheVerge

Disney fans can tune into Fortnite for collaboration announcements | GamesBeat

Report: WB Discovery looking to sell off games, other divisions to prevent total breakup | GameDeveloper


✨ Web 3⃣ + Meta 🌐
Samsung Partners with Illuvium for Web3 Gaming TVs | Gam3s.gg

Ronin Gaming Network Recovers Swiped Ethereum After $12 Million Bridge Attack | Decrypt.gg

Web3 tech firm Improbable makes its first profit after metaverse pivot | PGBiz


🧠 Knowledge Hub 📘
How To Build Product-Community Fly Wheels | Decentralised.co

Training the game designers of tomorrow (Part 3 of 5) | GameDeveloper

Seven psychology-inspired tips for perfect video game design | PGBiz

Playtesting blueprint for game studio managers | GameDeveloper


💲 Fundraising 🤑
Reforged Labs raises $3.9m in funding round | Gamesindustry.biz

Tribo Games Raises $3.3 Million in Funding | Gam3s.gg

BasedVC Raises $2 Million in Seed Funding and Preps for Token Launch | Gam3s.gg

Nazara Technologies acquires Fusebox Games for $27.2m | GamesIndustry.biz

MixRift raises $1.6M to develop mixed reality games | PGBiz

Bitkraft invests in Gam3Girl Ventures to help Web2 devs move to Web3 | GamesBeat

South Korea's HYBE secures $80 million investment for games division | PGBiz

PiP World acquires high-grossing stock simulator game StockRise | GamesBeat

Curio Secures $5.7 Million to Build Blockchain Games | Gam3s.gg

Social First bag a further $4.2 million investment as they get set to "redefine social gaming" | PGBiz

nunu.ai has raised $2 million towards AI playtesters and QA with bot detection on the way | PGBiz

Cartridge Secures $7.5M to Build On-Chain Games | Gam3s.gg


👾 Game & Stats Releases 📊
Viral shooter Kingmakers just secured a movie deal (and it hasn't even launched yet) | GameDeveloper

✅ Gaming News
✅ Web3 Gaming Coverage

Look at Gaming #402 | 8.19.2024

GM frens! Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. I wanted to kick this week off with some flowers.

Flowers for Epic Games. The multi-year battle has led to this final moment. Fortnite is launching on Epic Games' alternative app store.

The EGS mobile iOS store launched in the EU and Android store worldwide. In addition to Fortnite, users are able to download Rocket League and Fall Guys too. Pretty sweet deal.

What's important is that Epic's legal battle combined with policy from governments worldwide, opened this new domain of alternative stores. But this was a multi-year process that costed Epic close to $1B dollars.

To continue with the good news, there are signs of a recovery in the gaming space, particularly in the fundraising space. According to DDM's Games Investment Review, the investment volume nearly doubled to $8.1B in H1 2024 from $4.5B in all of 2023.

Anecdotally, I've been noticing the Fundraising section of this newsletter to be quite popping so it wasn't too surprising to see this review from DDM.

The last article I want to talk about is the state of game publishing. The macro environment is bad for every participant in the games industry from declining revenue, rising costs, to unending layoffs. Game Publishers are the purse strings of the industry so as they go through these pains, those strings tighten.

Publishers are coming in from the risk curve by greenlighting more predictable catalogues and long tail games while reducing investment in new IPs or even new games from existing IPs. Others turned to a more metric-driven approach like assessing the number of wishlists on Steam before launching a game.

Then many others who have been publishing for 10+ years are going back to more intimate indicators like median time spent on demos and playtests and external metrics like social engagement in Discord.

As the title of the article suggests, gone are the days of generalist indie publishers. Publishers must find their edge and deliver a unique offering to the market to establish a publisher identity. Obvs self-publishing is also a more viable path now than previously so Publishers must demonstrate their value-add to games.

That's it for this week's LAG! Wishing everyone a wonderful rest of their week.

gg

PS. Black Myth: Wukong will be released on August 20th. I'm going to be playing it!


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⚡ Spotlight 🤩
Epic Games Store and Fortnite launch on mobile platforms after a monumental fight |GamesBeat

New report says the games industry is "showing signs of a recovery" | GamesIndustry.biz

The state of games publishing: "The era of the generalist indie publisher is over" | GamesIndustry.biz


🌊 MARKET 📞
Krafton H1 24 revenue and operating profit surges to record highs | GamesBeat

The state of games publishing: "The era of the generalist indie publisher is over" | GamesIndustry.biz


💎 Deep Dives 🔎
Games Are For Everyone… Except You | KonvoyVentures

Roblox is Already the Biggest Game In The World. Why Can't It Make a Profit (And How Can It)? | MatthewBall

Singular: Mobile Market Trends in Q2'24 | GameDevReports

Guide to Growing Chinese Gaming Apps Overseas | LiftOff

New report says the games industry is "showing signs of a recovery" | GamesIndustry.biz

Sanlo survey says 81% of mobile gamers are aware of web shops | GamesBeat

How Ex-Riot Games Alumni Have Secured Over $450 Million | Gam3s.gg



🌈 Platforms 🏠
Candy Crush lands on alternative app stores | PGBiz

Epic Games Store and Fortnite launch on mobile platforms after a monumental fight |GamesBeat


✨ Web 3⃣ + Meta 🌐
Aavegotchi Studio Reveals ‘Members Only’ Ethereum Layer-3 Gaming Chain | Decrypt.gg

Ubisoft Reveals ‘Captain Laserhawk’ Game on Ethereum Layer-2 Arbitrum | Decrypt.gg

Ethereum Gaming Arcade BSMNT Launches on Base Network B3.Fun | Decrypt.gg


🧠 Knowledge Hub 📘
Supporting game design with evolutionary algorithms | GameDeveloper


💲 Fundraising 🤑
Nazara acquires Fusebox Games for $27.2M | GamesBeat

Autoverse Studios raises $8M for Auto Legends drag-racing Web3 game | GamesBeat

Krafton leads $11.3 million investment into Eschatology Entertainment | GameDeveloper

Web3 platform GAMEE secures investment from TON Ventures | PGBiz

Gate Ventures and The Blockchain Center in Abu Dhabi launch $100M Falcon Gate Ventures | GamesBeat

---------------------

✅ Gaming News
✅ Web3 Gaming Coverage

👋 Web3 Gaming Recap — August 19 + Past Week 🗓

🔄 Gaming Updates
• Tatsumeeko — Pre Beta Preview #2 Registration (August 13 - 23)
• Indus Game — Launched the Open Beta for their Battle Royale Game on both Android & iOS (August 16)
• Ragnarok: Monster World — Launched closed beta for both Android & iOS (August 19 - 26)
• Fableborne — Season 2 Launch (August 19)
• Dark Machine — NFT Mint (August 19)
• Call of the VoYd — Genesis VoYd Heart NFT Launch on IMX zkEVM (August 19/20)
• Real Jonah Blake (Real Third Web) — NFT Public Mint & Reveal (August 23)
• The Forgotten Runiverse — Opening New Foundations Portal to everyone (August 26 - September 7)
• Gangster Arena — Completed their Gangster Presale
• READYgg — Announced rebrand to PLAY
• Etherscape — Launched on Epic Games Store
• Crystals of Naramunz — Announced their rebrand to Crystalfall
• Holdara — Released their v1.1 Litepaper
• Treasure DAO — Announced that App & Portal will merge in preparation for Treasure L2
• Champions Tactics — Open Beta in September
• Sparkball — Announced their rebrand and revealed their roadmap (Founder's Pass Mint & S0 Launch in October 2024)

🔖 Gaming Reads
• Sean Geng (B3) — Why we launched basement.fun, a consumer app bringing more gamers on-chain
• B3 — Launched BSMNTᴮᴱᵀᴬ, a discovery platform for on-chain games (11 onboarded atm)
• Catizen — Announced Sniper Shooting: A FPS game that will soon be part of the Catizen Mini Game Center
• Jonathan Huang (BITKRAFT) — Case Study on how Happy Fishing Master redefines mobile fishing games w/ fast-paced action & clever design, expanding its appeal beyond its traditional audience
• Aavegotchi — Announced Geist, an L3 Gaming Chain powered by Arbitrum, Base, Alchemy and the $GHST token
• Limit Break — Shared details on their progress, upcoming products and contributions to the Web3 community 2 years since launching their free DigiDaigaku NFT Mint

▶️ Gaming Watch/Listens
• Stash — Zynga's rise from Facebook app to gaming empire (Justin Waldron, Co-Founder)
• GameSpot — Why Web3 Gaming Founders are massively out of touch (Simon Davis, Mighty Bear Games CEO)
• GAM3S.GG — Exploring Web0
• Naavik — Animoca Brands and the Motorverse
• Making Markets — Enabling the Metaverse: Herman Narula (CEO, Improbable)
• a16z Crypto — Token Do's and Don'ts
• Blockchain Gaming World — Why Gamee is back building on Telegram
• The Block — Gamifying fitness: Moonwalk wants to turn user tasks into tokenized rewards

💸 Gaming Fundraising
• Auto Legends — Announced $8m fundraise led by White Star Capital to develop a social drag-racing Web3 game
• Starkfit — Received seed grant from Starknet Foundation
• GAMEE — Received investment from TON Ventures to continue development around its WatBird Mini App

✅ Gaming Projects
• DUEL3
• Omnia
• KOKODI
• Frenzy Farm
• TonTon Games
• Hello Monster
• Wonder Wars
• Enzo Racing
• Pistols at 10 Blocks
• Sundial Mirage
• Speedtracer
• Based MC

hope helpful wuwu 😆💞

✅ Gaming News
✅ Web3 Gaming Coverage

👋 Web3 Gaming Recap — August 20

🔄 Gaming Updates
• Wilder World — Genesis Land Drop Snapshot (August 21)
• Catizen — Launching Mini Game Center (August 22)
• Counter Fire — Releasing public beta (August 22)
• Ember Sword — Closed beta will end soon (August 23)
• Nyan Heroes — Playtest 3 Early Access for Genesis NFT Holders (August 23)
• Edison Metaverse — Releasing Summercrush, a block-building game on browser (August 23)
• MetaGravity — Revealed new edge of chaos website
• Project Mirage — Update Dev Log

🔖 Gaming Reads
• Lawrence (Spartan Group) — An ode to (crypto) gaming: A tribute to interactive worlds
• bard.eth — $SIPHER Deep Dive: AAA Web3 game with 10x potential
• Adam (FrenPet) — Fren Pet players down ~77% (h/t Peter)

▶️ Gaming Watch/Listens
• 51 Insights — The Future of Web3 Gaming with BITKRAFT
• WORLDS — GG Quest: Building the Metaverse through User-Generated Content
• GameMakers — Chinese Gaming Giants: Tencent vs Netease
• a16z Games — The Illusion of Overnight Success: The Among Us Story with Forest Willard (Co-Founder, Innersloth)

✅ Gaming Projects
• AneeMate
• Wizzwoods
• GOY
• Moonwalk Fitness
• DojoMon
• Tamayoshi (ETH Global)
• Kiss or Slap (ETH Global)
• Draw Dash (ETH Global)

hope helpful wuwu 😆💞

✅ Gaming News
✅ Web3 Gaming Coverage

👋 Web3 Gaming Recap — August 21

🔔 Gaming Actionables
• bsmnt — Mint a free gasless collectible for Goat Gaming
• Oceanus — Test Oceanus, an on-chain strategic adventure game powered by World Engine (Argus) and provide feedback on Discord
• Rug Poker — Join discord to learn more about an idle money game where users plunder ETH by winning poker games

🔄 Gaming Updates
• Nyan Heroes — Including payload as a new game mode for Playtest 3
• AI Arena — Soft staking cycle 1 rewards are now claimable
• Sofamon — Introduced Gacha Machine that will launch a cat-themed gacha collection w/ Catizen (August 21)
• Otherside — Hosting Poker Alpha Testing (August 22)

🔖 Gaming Reads
• Messari — Understanding Ronin: A Comprehensive Overview
• Levx — Building rug.poker, an idle money game
• Kaito AI — What's going on with Gamefi

▶️ Gaming Watch/Listens
• Blockchain Gaming World — Promoting long term play in Blocklords

✅ Gaming Projects
• Oceanus
• Clash Foundation
• Sanko Arena
• TOY
• めめめのくらげ TCG (Takashi Murakami Game?)
• Rug Poker
• Radiant
• Soteria

hope helpful wuwu 😆💞

✅ Gaming News
✅ Web3 Gaming Coverage

👋 Web3 Gaming Recap — August 22

🔔 Gaming Actionables
• Forgotten Runes — START 🤕 earning & stacking Donut Points. Ref Link
• Counter Fire — TRY 🤕 the public beta for Counter Fire on iOS & Google App Store (Aug 22 - Sept 22)
• Rumble Kong League — PLAY 🤕 in their Season 01 Ground Zero Playtest, access limited to digital collectible holders (August 21 - 28)

🪚🪚🪚

🔄 Gaming Updates
• Mystery Society — Announced the Mystery Foundation with more details to come around the $MYSTRY token (50% allocated to the community)
• Proof of Play — Launching Multichain v1 next week (Constellation of blockchains on Arbitrum Orbit that work together with their on-chain game engine to support real-time, fully on-chain gameplay and internet-scale dApps)
• Otherside — Project Dragon Episode 2 (August 29)
• Mahjong Meta — Launched a new game, Mahjong 123
• Root Network — Updated to Substrate v1.0.0
• Star Atlas — Crew trading now available on Tensor

🔖 Gaming Reads
• Gam3Girl Ventures — Exploring the Web3 Gold Rush: Leading Game Genres
• 0xmons (Sudoswap) — Existing on-chain game designs favor automated players & put non-automated players at a disadvantage

▶️ Gaming Watch/Listens
• GameSpot — Founder explains how his Fortnite team, Evade got acquired, now he runs a Multi-Million Dollar Startup in Moku (Hantao)

✅ Gaming Projects
• Age Of Memes
• FOLK

hope helpful wuwu 😆💞

✅ Gaming News
✅ Web3 Gaming Coverage

👋 Web3 Gaming Recap — August 26 + Past Week 🗓

🔔 Gaming Actionables
• GOAT Gaming — CLAIM 🤕 Free Spins & Crowns for Season 2 of GOAT Gaming on Telegram. Ref Link
• XTREMEVERSE — TRY 🤕 extraction shooter game, Battle Xtreme that just released on iOS
• Infinite Seas — CLAIM 🤕 daily $ENERGY from faucet for PT Batch 0
• Nyan Heroes — CLAIM 🤕 early access code in Discord for Playtest 3 Early Access

🪚🪚🪚

🔄 Gaming Updates
• Forgotten Runes — Released New Foundations (August 26)
• Today The Game — Pioneers closed playtest (August 26)
• SHADOW WAR — August Playtest (August 30)
• Variance Poker — Launched their on-chain poker game on Arbitrum, Base & Mantle
• Catizen — Launched the beta of their mini game center
• MetaCene — $MAK is now trading on ByBit's Pre-Market
• Zeeverse — Launched Telegram Mini-Game
• D'islands — Soft launched their on-chain Dapp on Telegram
• Soulbound — August Release: The Discord Open Beta
• Aavegotchi — Rarity Farming Season 9: 1.2m $GHST to be distributed to top 7500 Gotchis
• Burn Ghost Games — Releasing 2.0 soon
• Karnak Legacy — Will launch S1: The Awakening of Karnak Collection on Beam's marketplace, Sphere
• PlayFi — Launched roadmap detailing their upcoming token launch
• Revolving Games — Reached their Node WL Pre-Sale Targets
• Trial Xtreme — Announced their soft launch

🔖 Gaming Reads
• Lattice — Sky Strife Enters Autonomous Mode
• Oscar (Wolves DAO) — Gaming Mint Playbook is evolving
• Sweep — A prediction market for your favorite streamers
• Obviously obvious (Devmons) — Gamescom 2024 had 10+ Web3 games with public booths

▶️ Gaming Watch/Listens
• Gam3s.GG — The Value of a Name

✅ Gaming Projects
• Derby Race
• Ethgard Legends
• Karnak

hope helpful wuwu 😆💞

✅ Gaming News
✅ Web3 Gaming Coverage

Look at Gaming #403 | 08.26.2024

GM! Welcome back to another week. I'm going to keep it short here with just some headlines that caught my eye.

Steam records a 37M concurrent player count -- probably 2M of those players were from Wukong over the weekend.

Speaking of platforms, this project called Now.gg is launching an app store on Telegram for mobile games. I was speaking with a friend and they told me something that opened my mind about Telegram as a distribution channel.

Web3 games do not have a de facto distribution channel. We resort to KOLs and influencer marketing, which are the most inefficient (but sometimes high converting). We need a programmatic way to grow in web3 and Telegram could be that platform.

Lastly, there's some news about Apple not quite accepting defeat and still putting up hurdles for app developers, namely Epic Games.

App developers pay up to 30% within Apple's system but could pay up to 25% plus an installation fee per user. The math goes like this, Apple takes 10% commissions on ALL sales plus a 5% for new users for the first year plus 12% for Epic Games Store's fee. Then there's the 50 euro cents per user per year installation fee known as the Core Technology Fee.

So third-party devs are stuck between a rock and a hard place as the solution to disintermediate Apple is actually not a "viable" option.

Bonus news! Go and check out MapleStory Universe's tokenomics docs done via WEB TOONS. I read through it and it definitely earns points for creativity and ingenuity. Though some parts were harder to understand so I think conventional docs are still needed.


-----

⚡ Spotlight 🤩
Steam breaks record with 37m concurrent players across entire platform | GamesIndustry.biz

Apple roll over and allow EU users to change default browser, delete stock apps and more | PGBiz

Now.gg opens Telegram store for mobile games and AI apps | GamesBeat

Apple is still standing in the way of Epic’s app store | TheVerge


🌊 MARKET 📞
Xsolla and Savvy partner to strengthen games industry in Middle East | GamesIndustry.biz


💎 Deep Dives 🔎
5 Tactics for the Volatile PC/Console Market | DeconstructorOfFun

🎙️ Tencent vs. NetEase: The Battle of Chinese Gaming Giants | GameMakers

The Invisible $2.8b Company | KonvoyVentures

Games & Numbers (August 7 - August 23) | GameDevReports

Now.gg opens Telegram store for mobile games and AI apps | GamesBeat

Monkey King defies heavens | SuperJoostPlaylist

Malaysia’s role in Southeast Asia’s games industry growth | NikoPartners


🌈 Platforms 🏠
Apple roll over and allow EU users to change default browser, delete stock apps and more | PGBiz

Apple is still standing in the way of Epic’s app store | TheVerge


✨ Web 3⃣ + Meta 🌐
Maplestory Universe released their tokenomics via Webtoons (!!) | Nexspace

Sony Unveils Soneium: A New Blockchain | Gam3s.gg

Esports Team Complexity to Build Fan App on Sonic in Sponsorship Deal | Decrypt.gg


💲 Fundraising 🤑
Nexus Interactive Secures $2M in Seed Funding | Gam3s.gg

Soulbound raises $4M for Web3 social gaming ecosystem | GamesBeat

Mudstack raises $4M to manage assets for game devs | GamesBeat

Falcon Gate Ventures New $100 Million Fund for Web3 | Gam3s.gg

Reforged Labs secures $3.9 million for gaming ads with GenAI | PGBiz


👾 Game & Stats Releases 📊
Steam breaks record with 37m concurrent players across entire platform | GamesIndustry.biz

👋 Web3 Gaming Recap — August 27 to 28

🔔 Gaming Actionables
• Pixelmon — JOIN 🤕 Hunting Season (Stake NFTs to earn $MON & more over multiple seasons)
• Ragnarok: Monster World — CLAIM 🤕 Medusa & Yoyo
• Radiant — SIGN UP 🤕 for Limited Beta Invite (Until Sept 13)
• Today the Game — JOIN 🤕 Luma's Call Closed Playtest

🪚🪚🪚

🔄 Gaming Updates
• Axie Infinity — Revamped App.Axie Dashboard is LIVE & Launched Origins Season 10
• Catizen — $HSK to be meow-dropped soon to Catizens
• Aavegotchi — Revealed Grid Gladiator Demo, an Aavegotchi-themed roguelike deck-builder
• Illuvium — Rolled out update that fixes Minting issue bug on Illuvidex
• Haunted Space — Released Season 5
• Call Of The VoYd — Genesis VoYd Hearts NFT public sale is now live
• Etherscape — Released Whitepaper

🔖 Gaming Reads
• Messari — Web3 Gaming Q2 2024: The Bloodbath Continues But Bloodbaths often lead to Beautiful Destinatinations (Colleen Sullivan)
• Wolves DAO — Accurately Gauging the Success of Web3 Gaming: Overcoming Data Challenges and Bridging East-West Insights
• Sinjin (MAYG) — Why you can't just slap on tokens to a successful web2 game and make it work in web3
• Sreeram Kannan (Eigen Layer) — Consumer app for playing on-chain verifiable gaming tournaments for existing major server-side games
• Noah Bragg — Building an on-chain, mobile game built on Farcaster social graph & Base
• Arto (Tribo Games) — Game design isn't only about adding: Figuring out what to remove can lead to big wins

▶️ Gaming Watch/Listens
• Doubl3Tap — Episode 27: Alex Paley (Faraway)
• Good Game Pod — Top Trends in Crypto VC with Delphi Digital

💸 Gaming Fundraising
• Trial Xtreme — Raised $11m extension round led by Blockchain Capital & Merit Circle to continue development on their esports title, Trial Xtreme Freedom

✅ Gaming Projects
• Playable Tokens
• BInders

hope helpful wuwu 😆💞

✅ Gaming News
✅ Web3 Gaming Coverage

🔴 New Project from NBA TopShot Co-Creator 😺🐣

❗️ ckatzegg minting ends Sept 1 7AM (UTC+8). Mint is limited to only 1 per wallet — Link

Source
Source
Source

👋 Web3 Gaming Recap — Weekend + Sept 2 🗓

🔔 Gaming Actionables
• Hamster Kombat — LISTING 🤕 of $HMSTR pre-market futures on OKX (Sept 25)
• Pixelmon — STAKE 🤕 Pixelmon & Trainer NFTs to accumulate MON for Hunting Season
• Counter Fire — PARTICIPATE 🤕 $CEC Launchpool on BitGet 🤕 (Aug 30 - Sept 9)
• Runiverse — REOPENING 🤕 of The Runiverse (Sept 2)
• METALCORE — PLAY 🤕 Metalpunks Rhapsody Season 1 (September 12)

🪚🪚🪚

🔄 Gaming Updates
• Kaia — Kakao's Klatyn & Line's Finschia Blockchains Merge to create Kaia to compete with TON
• D20 Labs — Announced that they have acquired all products & assets under Sugartown from Zynga
• CryptoKitties — Released Open Edition NFT Mint for ckatzegg (Seems there is a new game coming on Flow blockchain)
• Immutable X — Signed official partnership with Netmarble to bring Ni no Kuni & other flagship titles to Web3
• Axie Infinity — Passive Adventure Update for Homeland (September 4)
• Soulbound — Ability Frenzy Update 4.33.16
• Blast Royale — Launched Beta Season 11
• Uncharted — Released their new title, Fishing Frenzy
• Today the Game — Mythic Seed NFT Supply will be 5,555
• Paragons DAO — Introduced Prompt points (Additional reward for $PDT Stakers)
• De:Lithe Last Memories — Topped iOS & Google App Stores in Japan

🔖 Gaming Reads
• Josh Lu (a16z) — Lessons from spending >$1B in marketing from Gabriel Leydon's talk at a16z SPEEDRUN
• Arto (Tribo Games) — Crypto game monetization will go thru some major growing pains
• Runiverse — Footprint Analytics Dashboard
• lordOfAFew (Loot Realms) — Dojo webapps can be turned into native TG apps w/ cartridge controller (Distribution channel for FOCGs!)
• Garga.eth (Yuga Labs) — New division in Yuga (Workshop) will be rolling out the first set of products on ApeChain
• John Patten (Treasure DAO) — Infomon is one of the weirdest/most interesting projects as of late
• Obviously obvious (Devmons GG) — Web3 gaming after Gamescom 2024
• Vetemor — Alleged Illuvium developer has come forward anonymously as a whistleblower revealing why the project is failing
• natealex — Creating a simple mass multiplayer crypto game with no associated NFTs
• Aethir — The Future of Cloud Gaming powered by Aethir
• Infomon — Player Guide for Closed Test Party
• MUD — Introduced World Explorer, making inspecting & interacting with world in MUD more intuitive & efficient
• Wizzwoods — Unveiled the Whitepaper for their SocialFi pixel farming game
• Seeker — $DMT price performance will depend on how well Sankoscape does
• 1mpal — Story of 111%: From Nine Failures to Dreaming of Korea's Supercell

▶️ Gaming Watch/Listens
• Naavik — Emergency Pod: SEC vs OpenSea
• Deconstructor of Fun — TWIG #297: Gamescom Confidential, Why Steam ain't Blocked by China and the TRUTH about Tim Hortons
• Gam3s.GG — Power to the Players
• FaZe — FaZe Banks explains how Crypto gaming will change the world

💸 Gaming Fundraising
• MetaCene — Raised a new funding round from Galaxy Interactive, Gam3Gril Ventures, Sebastien Borget (Sandbox), GiulioX (Pixelmon) and other angels

✅ Gaming Projects
• Spyre
• Bimon
• MERV
• Aolotto
• D20 Labs
• Cat Battle
• Reloader.gg
• Kyzen
• Play Solana

hope helpful wuwu 😆💞

✅ Gaming News
✅ Web3 Gaming Coverage

👋 Web3 Gaming Recap — Sept 3 to 7 🗓

🔔 Gaming Actionables
• STEPN — TRY 🤕 STEPN GO Beta Test on iOS & Google App Store (Activation Codes in Discord)
• Bored Ape Yacht Club — PREDOWNLOAD 🤕 Dookey Dash: Unclogged (Releases September 12)
• Crypto Kitties — JOIN 🤕 WAITLIST for new Telegram Game, CryptoKitties: All the Zen
• SuiPlay — PREORDER 🤕 SuiPlay, the world's first Web3-native handheld gaming device (Launches H1 2025)
• Soccerverse — TRY 🤕 Beta Season 2

🪚🪚🪚

🔄 Gaming Updates
• Zynga — Exited its web3 project Sugartown, selling all assets to D20 (Ex-Zynga Web3 team)
• Metacene — Launching $MAK as live circulating currency (Sept 10)
• Forgotten Runiverse — New Foundations Update, New Dungeon (Pyramid) and Open Beta extension to Sept 12
• Catizen — $CATI Spot Listing on ByBit (Sept 20)
• Tatsumeeko — Pre Beta Preview #2 is live (Check email)
• Off the Grid — Apply to be a Pioneer
• 77 Bit — Releasing Fall 2024?
• Crypto: The Game — New Season Coming?
• Spellborne — Unveiled Stellar Pass
• Ronin — Relaunched Bridge
• Chat Royale — Releasing Beta this September

🔖 Gaming Reads
• Matthew Ball — OnlyFans P&L (2019 - 2023)
• Dhrumil (Biomes) — Autonomous World Triangle & how it works in Biomes
• Plotchy (Nascent) — Onchain games will reward those that gather perfect information & know how to use it
• Raschel — Haiku: Winner of Dojo Residency Game Jam 2024
• Halfwish — How has Halfwish, an original PVP Roguelite card game, solved the issues of the genre such as netdecking and uncontrollable RNG?
• Rev0 (Voya Games) — How I sold my gaming company for $160m & became a co-founder at Angry Dynomites Lab
• 1mpal — Retention is Undervalued in Web3 Gaming

▶️ Gaming Watch/Listens
• Onchain Summit — Geist Network: Based Members-Only Gaming L3s
• Doubl3Tap — Episode 28: Henri Stern (Privy)
• HELIX — August Update
• The Block Podcasts — The Crypto Beat Episode 2: Telegram Games
• Gam3s.GG — Asia Loves Web3
• GameSpot — How to Spot Dealbreaker Red Flags in Co-Founders before its too late

💸 Gaming Fundraising
• PLAYTRON — Announced investment from Square Enix to help expand distribution & access to next-gen gaming

✅ Gaming Projects
• Live Bet
• Homies
• FunHub
• Luster Labs
• Bunny Battle
• XPLUS

hope helpful wuwu 😆💞

✅ Gaming News
✅ Web3 Gaming Coverage

👋 Web3 Gaming Recap — Sept 9 to 12 🗓

🔔 Gaming Actionables

• NEON Runners — 🕹 Try their F2P Competitive Cross Platform PvP Steam Game release
• MetalCore — 👾 Available to download now on Epic Games
• Paradise Tycoon — 🤕 Participate in final P2A event before launch, Harvest Season

🪚🪚🪚

🔄 Gaming Updates
• Champions Tactics — Open Beta (Sept 18 - 23)
• Elixir DAO — Proposing to burn 1% of $ELIX supply (~$250k+) to celebrate staking launch
• Guild of Guardians — Reached 1m downloads on mobile
• Onchain Heroes — Announced that the launch of their idle RPG will be delayed to Q4 2024
• Axie Infinity — August SLP Stability Fund Update
• Biomes — Realtime beta coming soon
• Frenpet — Gas sponsoring soon
• Aurory — Planning to launch a Seekers of Tokane Pre-Release mobile build
• Ballies Universe — Launching Ballies Universe on Sphere (Collection on IMX zkEVM)

🔖 Gaming Reads
• TON Ventures — Driving the first 50k users to your Telegram Mini App
• Arto (Tribo Games) — F2P games offer lessons for Web3
• Andrea Chang (Oak Grove Ventures) — What has Telegram done right leading TON's growth (Web2 & Web3 Case Study)
• taylor — DOT is now part of a16z Crypto CSX 2024 cohort
• Ahri — Weekly Patch Notes 2
• Delphinus Lab — zkWASM, Mini-Rollup and the Future of Web3 Gaming
• IcoBeast — Potential GRAPES soft rug
• Catizen — All about $BOMBIE

▶️ Gaming Watch/Listens
• Wu Blockchain — Binance Labs Roundtable: How should Blockchain Games respond to criticism of Black Myth: Wukong
• Scenius Studio — Episode 48: Folius, Jason Kam (Web3 pull in China, How telegram tracks against WeChat, Folius' bet on Catizen & development of the TG app ecosystem and more)
• Blockchain Gaming World — Building fully onchain games with Cartridge
• GameSpot — The Secret Ingredients to a Successful Token Launch
• Deconstructor of Fun — Top 3 Mistakes Gaming Startups Make: According to the VCs

💸 Gaming Fundraising
• Moku — Announced $5.35m investment round led by Sky Mavis & a16z Speedrun together with Arca, Framework and 32-Bit Ventures
• VectorShift — Announced fundraising round from Delphi Ventures & 32-Bit Ventures
• CASTILE — Announced $8m fundraising round led by SevenX Ventures

✅ Gaming Projects
• EVE Frontier
• DOT
• Ballies

hope helpful wuwu 😆💞

✅ Gaming News
✅ Web3 Gaming Coverage

👋 Web3 Gaming Recap — Sept 13 🗓

🔔 Gaming Actionables
• Mystery Society — Launched their P2A campaign. Play via themysterysociety.xyz

• GOAT Gaming — Launched new game beta, To The Moon. Try via t.me/goatgamingbot

🪚🪚🪚

🔄 Gaming Updates
• METALCORE — Season 1 Launch (September 13, 6PM ET)

• DUPER — Hosting Private meetup to play unreleased version during Token2049 (September 19)

• Last Memories — $GEEK listing on Exchanges (September 26) and airdrop (September 27)

• Pirate Nation — Signups are back (via form now)

🔖 Gaming Reads
• D20 Labs (Sugartown) — Announced Royal Nutz Poker Club, a social casino poker game built on Base

• Oscar (Wolves DAO) — How important is AL/WL Distribution for NFT Mints

• 1mpal — Uncomfortable truth behind Korea's Web3 Gaming

• STEPN GO — September Townhall Recap

▶️ Gaming Watch/Listens
• GAM3S.GG — Women in Web3

• a16z Games — The Secret Behind Blizzard's Success | Allen Adham, Co-Founder of Blizzard

• Naavik — How to bring brands to Roblox

💸 Gaming Fundraising
• Black Block — Announced their $1.4m fundraising round led by Delphi Ventures to continue developing The Sprawl, a systematic sandbox MMO

• Balance Games — Raised a total of $30m across 2 funding rounds led by a16z & Galaxy Interactive to launch Balance.fun, an AI-powered blockchain experience platform

• Orange Cap Games — Announced their $2m pre-seed angel round to develop a trading card game featuring Pudgy Penguins IP

✅ Gaming Projects
• Balance Games
• Coke
• Slingshot Gamers
• Somnis
• Royal Nutz Poker Club

hope helpful wuwu 😆💞

✅ Gaming News
✅ Web3 Gaming Coverage