8 Web3 Games to Watch in the Bull Market 🕹️
Web3 Gaming is Having its Moment
👋🏽 Hello everyone, gm gm, WELCOME BACK to another edition of the Overpriced JPEGs newsletter!
Today, we're discussing web3 gaming, highlighting 8 essential projects to watch in the upcoming bull market.
What you’ll read below is a newsletter by Kyle Reidhead from Web3 Academy, who have joined up with us to write + curate in-depth, quality content directly in your inbox!
As always, if you enjoy this one, let us know by replying to this email! Let’s get into it.
With every new crypto cycle comes the promise of web3 gaming finally going mainstream.
Yet, it never happens. Since 2018, 80% of web3 gaming projects have failed. But this time is different, I think… and hope. 🤞
I’m optimistic because we finally have the infrastructure, aka cheap, fast, and scalable blockchains necessary to provide a frictionless experience for players.
Combine this with the mania of the coming bull market and we’ll likely see many games reach insane valuations, just like Axie Infinity did in 2020 ($25 billion market cap).
In many ways it’s already started. Look at some gains that happened during the past 30 days.
So today I'm sharing the 8 best web3 games that I’m personally excited about and that I think you should pay attention to.
Disclosure: Some of the following projects have tokens. This article isn’t meant to give you investment advice. In fact, I don’t even own any of these tokens.
Do with that information what you will.
Let’s dive in.
Illuvium (Immutable)
Illuvium is a sci-fi fantasy NFT gaming ecosystem, which includes multiple games with some level of interoperability and cross-game rewards.
It features high-quality graphics and offers onchain benefits like asset ownership and governance.
Recently, Illuvium Arena, one of the games in the Illuvium ecosystem launched on the Epic Games Store, which has over 56 million monthly active users who are mostly not in web3.
This marks a significant integration of blockchain gaming into mainstream platforms.
Next up, Illuvium plans to ship Illuvium Overworld, an open-world role-playing game (RPG).
Illuvium, which has been developing over the years and through the bear market, is poised for an exciting future as they prepare to release their projects.
Shrapnel (Avalanche)
Shrapnel is a FPS (first-person-shooter) AAA game, being developed by Neon Machine, a gaming studio that has raised $37.5 million for development.
Its official release date on the Epic Games Store is set for December, and will be available for early users only. Shrapnel plans to launch fully sometime in 2024.
In anticipation of its launch, the $SHRAP token is up 170% in the past month.
P.S. - Shrapnel has some FUD with its CEO who's trying to pay some personal debt with company funds… Startup vibes. 🤦
Echelon Prime (Ethereum and Base)
Echelon Prime is a web3 gaming ecosystem that recently launched its first game on the Base blockchain: Parallel TCG.
We wrote about this one in August, showing you how to set it up.
The reason I’m excited about the Echelon Prime ecosystem is because of how well they delivered Parallel, a simple trading card game that requires no wallet and it’s free to play.
It’s similar to popular card games like Hearthstone, Magic the Gathering (MTG), or Marvel Snap, offering a familiar experience to trading card game players.
This one’s also up on the Epic Games Store.
I see Echelon Prime, powered by the $PRIME token as one of the leaders in web3 gaming.
Star Atlas (Solana)
Star Atlas is a highly anticipated grand strategy game of space exploration, territorial conquest, and political domination.
This one is built on Solana and already has two tokens:
$ATLAS: The in-game token acting as the currency.
$POLIS: The governance token of the Star Atlas DAO, who can influence decision-making processes.
The reason I’m particularly excited about Star Atlas is because of it being the premiere game on Solana, having the entire $SOL community backing them.
I expect the Solana ecosystem to continuously grow, as I’ve highlighted recently, and Star Atlas is definitely one of the participants on the forefront of that ecosystem.
However, this game has been in development for a few years now (since before last cycle), so things are definitely moving slower compared to other games.
Skyweaver by Horizon (Polygon)
Skyweaver is another digital trading card game, like Parallel, developed by Horizon Blockchain Games.
It's a free-to-play game that allows players to collect, trade, and battle with a wide array of unique cards.
I’m not as bullish on Skyweaver, as I am on the developers of the game, Horizon, who are backed by the two gaming giants: Ubisoft and Take-Two.
These have been key players in Horizon's funding rounds. They contributed to a $40 million Series A funding round.
With immense backers and a game that’s already live, I’m super excited to see what Horizon has to offer in 2024 and beyond.
Extra Honorable Mentions
The 5 games and gaming ecosystems above are the ones that I’m most interested in. However, I’ve got an extensive list of others too. Here are 3 more honorable mentions.
Ronin Network
Ronin is the blockchain upon which Axie Infinity is built. While the entire purpose of Ronin was to support Axie, it is now expanding.
They’ve seen over 600k monthly active users, a 6x growth in the past 30 days and a big inflow of fees (revenue to the blockchain).
They’re welcoming new gaming studio partners like Zillion Whales to build on top of Ronin.
And they’ve announced the Ronin Name Service, an ENS-like naming service which Ronin users can purchase with $RON to have their onchain identity.
SIDUS
This one is a game/metaverse project that aims to combine blockchain with AI – a fascinating intersection.
While details are limited, Sidus has recently burned a good chunk of their circulating token supply, something that has attracted a lot of attention.
Treasure DAO (on Arbitrum)
This one is an ecosystem aiming to bring games and players together via its $MAGIC token on Arbitrum.
Wrapping Up – Where Should You Invest?
I’ve now shared the 8 games/gaming ecosystems that I’m keeping an eye on for the coming years. But here’s what I’m mostly excited about.
Blockchain abstraction.
The biggest hurdle for web3 games is abstracting the blockchain tech away from users, something that’s necessary for mainstream adoption.
Nobody wants to set up a wallet, deposit tokens and sign transactions to play a game.
Those who can successfully hide the web3 tech under the hood will win, and Immutable is the furthest along in this journey.
On Immutable, users don’t have to pay gas fees nor sign transactions. The games built on top of Immutable can also offer off-chain NFT minting and Immutable’s $IMX token is not required for transactions.
This is huge for game developers, which is why Ubisoft chose to partner with Immutable. It is also why over 200 web3 games are set to launch on Immutable in 2024.
Immutable has spent the entire bear market building out the infrastructure and tools that developers need to build games.
They’re now ready to ship and I think they’re perfectly positioned to grab most of the web3 gaming market share in the near future.
While I’m bullish on multiple individual web3 games and ecosystems, I’m by far the most excited about Immutable.
Disclosure: I own a little bit of $IMX.
To learn more about Immutable & specifically about the $IMX token, read our recent PRO report where I dive deep into the tokenomics of $IMX to assess whether or not it’s a good investment.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and not financial advice. Conduct your own research and consult a financial advisor before making investment decisions or taking any action based on the content.