Illuvium: insider claims, community FUD, and the promise of a "AAA" game

GC ALPHA 13

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.

Season 1 of the Super Champs campaign is ending on Sep 18.

You can still join the campaign using this link (referral).

(P2A) EVENTS & SOCIALFI

FISHING FRENZY

• Fishing Frenzy is a new game by the Uncharted studio. The game is still in its pre-season right now but already has a live P2A in which you can participate

  • From a high level it’s a casual game where you catch fish, sell them, and perform upgrades to progress more quickly

    • Every time you cast you expend energy, which takes time to refill. You can also spend your coins (from selling fish) to buy sushi and replenish energy, but you rather want to use coins on performing upgrades

      • The further you cast the more energy it costs. But I believe it also makes you catch rarer (more expensive) fish, so it’s worth experimenting to see what casting range is the best to optimize for

    • At lvl 200 (which takes a few days of playing) you unlock referral codes, and by referring another player you receive sushi

  • Note: the airdrop is rewarded based on your total XP, not the leaderboard rank. It seems difficult to catch up with other players right now, but you will likely have benefits when S1 starts

NYAN HEROES

• Nyan Heroes is returning with airdrop #3. The game now includes a new map, game mode, two new classes, and a new “Augments” system

  • The event will start on September 4th (Wednesday) and last until September 25th. Registrations will also open on the 4th

  • This airdrop will prioritize rewarding the most active players, and you must meet the requirements of linking your Sol wallet and Epic Games account to your Nyan Heroes account, and earn at least 2,000 MEOW points to claim the NYAN airdrop.

  • During this event, 5M NYAN (0.5%) will be distributed

    • 30% of the rewards will go to the leaderboard pool, rewarding the top 20% of players (ranked by their total wins)

    • NFT holders enjoy point multipliers (based on the highest rarity of each collection in your wallet)

    • There will be daily and weekly bonuses, with bonuses for completing specific missions and missions consecutively

    • Lastly, there will be a community event, where you can earn extra MEOW during Discord nights and participate in official partner communities

FLASH EVENTS

• Dark Time’s Rune Run is launching today

• You can sign up for Project R (Radiant Game) now to have a chance to receive a limited beta invite

• Start earning in-game gold, Season 0 points, and “secret loot” by playing Maelstrom on the Uprising L2

• Part 1 of RavenQuest’s P2A started on the 29th of Aug and lasts until 7 Sep

• iAgent Protocol released its Discord campaign, where you can earn AGNT through participating in daily and weekly challenges + joining Discord events

• Aria’s Launchbot is releasing tomorrow, where you can earn Serafina NFTs (note: they announced 3 Telegram games a little while ago)

• The FOCG Dappmon is now available (a peer-to-peer on chain pet game)

• Calamity is organizing a game test contest tomorrow - the best players and creators share a $4400 prize pool

• The first new quests of XAI’s Vanguard Genesis Phase 2 are now live - you have 14 days to complete them

• Life Beyond announced its Social Questing Platform launch. The campaign will run till the 27th of Sept with a 1M BLIF reward pool

MARKET TALK

SUGARTOWN DETACHES FROM ZYNGA

• Last Saturday was announced that Sugartown was acquired from Zynga by D20 Labs. This means the Web3 game ecosystem isn’t part of the Take Two-owned company anymore

• Most people (including me), seemed quite confused about it, so let’s break down what we know:

  • D20 is fully comprised of the members of the ex-Zynga team

    • Camol became the marketing lead and is now an official co-founder

  • Sugartown has games in stock (the repurposed mobile Zynga games?), this likely means they bought the licensing rights with it

    • Next week there will be a space, to speak on the financials of the studio

  • After the D20 announcement, they also released an announcement trailer for Chapter 1

    • The video shows small clips of games that will likely come to the platform

• Furthermore, there are a bunch of unknowns, so this is all speculation:

  • Sugartown ran a 7-day announcement campaign, that firstly led to a delay, and now into this announcement

    • Arguably, not the best way to announce something of this level of impact. But maybe the timing was simply off?

  • From Zynga’s perspective, Sugartown might have not met the KPIs, that’s why they divested

  • In a Tweet from a while ago, employees from Sugartown mentioned that they are developing their own blockchain

    • The above might have been conflicting with Zynga’s vision. It was also mentioned that this deal has been in “development for months”

  • Lastly, people are assuming Sugartown has a lot more “Web3 freedom” now and will launch a token

• Overall, there seem to be a lot of questions behind this decision, so let’s wait for more info released this week, before making further judgments

  • Post announcement we did see a slight drop off in the floor price of the Ora NFTs. Quite understandable to see the market react negatively when the thesis of being associated with Zynga fell through

ILLUVIUM, WHISTLEBLOWERS, AND CRITICISM

• A few weeks ago, the infamous anti-crypto games Youtuber Jauwn, made a video on Illuvium, revisiting the current state of the game (his 2nd video on the title)

  • Under this video, an anonymous account claims to be a prior dev at the studio, shedding light on “why Illuvium is failing”. The claims mostly come down to the founders being at fault, for their egos, lack of experience, and lack of vision

  • Of course, these are anonymous claims, which can’t be verified (we don’t know if they’re real).

  • However, it seems some type of revolt has been happening in the Illuvium community recently. More players are becoming skeptical, holders are losing faith, and long-time believers are turning

    • Illuvium has raised a ton of money from investors and the community, $60M, and “expectation debt” is catching up

  • Lean teams, with smaller visions, which are more agile are winning, because they are not over-selling ideas and bringing products to market faster. On the other hand, Illuvium sold the idea of a “AAA” game, and players are expecting them to be the next No Man’s Sky (the good version)

• Note: this is not shitting on Illuvium or saying these claims are real. It’s simply an assessment of an OG Web3 project that I believe is skating on thin ice right now

ON THE RISE

• The game developer and publisher Faraway announced a new game Rebel Skies

  • It’s a TCG x action-RTS (I would describe it as a vertical Clash Royale)

• PARAVOX is gaining some traction as a competitive esports title

  • It’s a 3v3 fast-paced arena shooter

• Jungle is releasing “something” in less than 48 hours

  • We know they originally planned their mint date around this date, so I speculate it will cover this topic

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