How should we rank gaming NFTs?
GC ALPHA 12
Disclaimer: None of this information should be taken as financial advice. DYOR + I will hold some of the assets that are spoken of in this newsletter.
Spellborne released its Crux Tower event
Defeat the Team Crux members to win golden nuggets, but you can only lose 5 battles in total or you’re out.
(P2A) EVENTS & SOCIALFI
FORGOTTEN RUNES: DONUTS
Forgotten Runes (FR) launched its point system last Wednesday - players are tasked to stack donuts
The points campaign will run for at least 12 weeks
The open beta is launching today (August 26th)
Players will be able to earn donuts through both passive and active quests (new quests are unlocked daily):
Passive: an initial drop and weekly drops, additionally, you will be rewarded for your past behavior (holding NFTs and POAPs, original minters, voting, etc.)
Active: complete social quests and participate in the Open Beta
The Open Beta is a 13-day-long campaign, where players complete quests to earn cards
Cards will be redeemable for various prizes (chests with donuts) in the BugBear mini-game
Complete the quests daily to enter a Donut Jackpot raffle
Yesterday FR introduced a Mana referral system. You earn mana by referring your friends and earn extra when they hit certain milestones or make Mana purchases
Mana can be rolled for mintable rewards such as Land Plots and Builder’s Crates
FLASH EVENTS
There is only one event to explain in depth this week, so instead, we will quickly cover the multiple events that are currently happening and coming up:
RavenQuest is launching its Early Access P2A campaign on the 29th
10M QUEST up for grabs, more details to be released today
AI Arena released a guild feature in collaboration with Lore
Build a guild, pool your NFTs and tokens, and earn NRN rewards with the guild multiplier
The Fableborne Kingdom Clash event is starting today (August 26 - 29)
The event includes PvP raiding and defending and you can win Gold Essence
Blocklords’ Dynasty Orb Lock event launched last Wednesday
You lock in different Orbs with different rarities to earn Node Power
Apeiron’s PVE 1.0 Beta went live last Thursday (note: leaderboards and rewards go live on Sep 5)
Complete challenges, collect new Apostles, and lvl them up
Road to GOAT season 2 is now live
You get 3 free spins every day, every spin earns you crown rewards, and by inviting friends and completing missions you unlock extra spins + prizes
Castile launched its P2A campaign: “Castile Quest”
For now, it only features simple social quests, but in the future in-game progress and achievements will be rewarded
Tribally Games is launching its P2A campaign today
24M TRIBAL will be allocated to the top 4000 players
Just by participating, you will earn 1000 TRIBAL
Swords and Dungeons is launching its SND 3rd game test on the 29th
Non-NFT holders can also participate and earn TestGOLD (convertible to GOLD tokens later)
Counter Fire released its Public Beta Test last Thursday
The campaign will last 1 month and have a rewards pool of 500K CEC tokens
MARKET TALK
SONY BLOCKCHAIN
A few days ago Sony had an official news release: “Sony Block Solutions Labs” has developed a blockchain network called Soneium to support Web3 infra”:
The network will support a range of Web3 applications, including games, NFT marketplaces, and entertainment services, accessible via digital wallets
“Soneium aims to create killer use cases to drive wider adoption”
I do wonder what this would mean for Off the Grid. Would they allow the game to continue to run using an Avax subnet?
Soon a testnet will be released for developers to co-create apps with internal and external developers
The network will be aligned with Astar Network’s zkEVM
Sony plans to integrate Soneium with various Sony Group businesses and IPs to develop new Web3 services
Over a year ago we saw Sony file a cross-platform NFT trading framework, that will allow players to earn NFTs, that also work across other gaming systems
Understandably, people were critical last year, as businesses often file patents as a way to create a hedge, but not necessarily act on it
Other specifics in the patent they filed included:
“Time-restricted ownership of NFTs”: a system for players and streaming viewers to rent in-game NFTs
Digital assets that can be rented include exclusive skins, emotes, and custom artwork that “offer no in-game benefits”
In 2022 they even filed another patent to track digital assets using the blockchain
Overall, this affirms Sony is making a serious attempt to explore Web3 gaming
Also, in GC Alpha 03, we briefly talked about StarTale Labs and Sony breadcrumbs - they are developing Sonenium and the Astar Network
MORE NFT TALK
Last week we talked about the current state of the (gaming) NFT market. This week, I want to talk more about ranking NFTs, utility, and upcoming NFTs:
Ranking NFTs: A couple of days ago Elisa published this overview, where she ranked a little less than 100 NFT collections based on communication to holders, NFT utility + benefits, innovation, and art/cultural impact
I don’t agree with every ranking, but props for making the list
If I were to make it on my own I’d also consider factors such as collection size, # of existing collections, promises made to holders (what has been announced), and last, but not least, the game itself
Let me explain the last point: I believe over the short/medium term, the only NFTs that will matter are the ones backed by good products
Quality games will attract the most players, the most popular games attract the most attention (including that of speculators), and so they will attract the most liquidity
I am not saying we’re here yet, but as the space is maturing, it makes sense to see more success coming from NFTs backed by quality products
At least this is how I am looking when buying/selling NFTs nowadays
Upcoming NFT collections: A few days ago, Enryu, published this list of gaming NFTs you should focus on, including:
Jungle, Today the Game, Castile, L3E7, City Shadows Game, Cambria. Here’s how I’d rank them:
Cambria’s Founder NFT collection: the on chain Runescape, high engagement with a lot of high LTV players
Jungle: WL for the collection is still going for $1500 on Exsaverse. Plus their game is seeing early traction in terms of downloads
Today’s Mythic Seeds: demand to get AL spots looks incredibly high, existing 0.8 ETH collection, one of the most hyped Web3 games
Castile (4), Shadows Game / formerly TTT (5), L3E7 (6)
Note: currently there’s little information out on all of these upcoming mints. So, this ranking may change in the future
ON THE RISE
Gumi announced a partnership with SUI
The partnership includes the co-development of Brave Frontier Versus
League of Kingdoms released a trailer for LOK Chronicle (coming in Q4)
The game expands on the LOK universe, which started with the MMORTS
Sonic, the Solana-based SVM chain has been gaining traction recently
New games and various partnerships seem to be the driving factor