The market dips, but we can still play games...

GC ALPHA 39

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.

Somnia launched S4 of Quests.

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(P2A) EVENTS & SOCIALFI

• Pre-registrations for Atia’s Legacy’s playtests this Summer are now live

• Wildcard is kicking off Closed Alpha Playtests on March 14

• Fishing Frenzy is returning this month with S2:

  • What's new? A new cooking feature, NFT assets, emblems, VIP, and Frenzy Points (exchangeable for FISH token)

• Paradise Tycoon launched its 2-week Safe Harbor event

• G3 Battle Pass S2 is now live with more games and more rewards

• The Treeverse’s open Alpha is finally coming?

• Elumia is now live and accessible through the Ronin Game Pass

  • There's a $100K laddered raffle and leaderboard rewards

• Legend of Arcadia’s S2 is now live (compete for ARCA tokens)

• Nyan Heroes will launch its 4th P2A event on March 26

• LOK Chronicle’s Open Beta is starting on March 17

• Pre-registrations for the Tokyo Beast "Special Release Tournament and Betting Event" are now live

  • The pre-tournament will have a prize pool of $20,000.

• Pixels launched its Harvest Hustle event:

  • Gather resources, craft goods, and climb the leaderboard for exclusive prizes

• Seraph launched S2 (P2E), with new challenges, a game update, and new rewards

• Kuroro Beasts announced that S2 will be launching on March 17

MARKET TALK

GROWING OUTSIDE CT’S ECHOCHAMBER

• Recently, I have been reading a few takes on the dependency of crypto games on CT. These games are competing over a small pool of gamers, which can work if you’re a Path 2 game (title for crypto natives), but won’t be enough when focusing on Path 1

• Most games in Web3 are simply building a community, however, “community building isn’t a scalable marketing solution”

  • And neither is CT-marketing as the growth is limited (the pie isn’t growing)

• Furthermore, there’s the argument that crypto-savvy players won’t spend in your game, unless they can (potentially) earn more. But I will reserve a larger audience mismatch debate for another time

• So last week, Hunter posted an overview of teams reaching “real” gamers. In summary, here are the marketing/UA strategies they are leveraging:

  • Mobile teams focused on traditional UA (KoD)

  • Presence during the Web2 gaming shows (Bornless)

  • Localized launch strategies using Facebook (Ragnarok Landverse)

  • IP partnerships with well-known brands (Oh Baby Racing)

  • Partnerships with micro-streamers (Riftstorm)

  • Gaming ambassadors from traditional gaming (Parallel TCG)

  • Well-known streamers from traditional gaming (Off the Grid)

• Plus, he mentions a few more teams, the post is worth checking out

  • Other teams I’d add to this list are:

    • Using local TikTok streamers (Ragnarok: Monster World)

    • Traditional streamers around activations (Mystery Society - RIP)

    • Building an audience on Reddit (Spellborne)

• The point is that few teams are trying to succeed from a fundamental perspective (“real” players, sustainable non-token/NFT revenue, etc.), requiring them to target traditional (mainstream) channels

  • A counterpoint to all this, is that the blockchain provides new pathways of distribution and UA. However, incentive-based marketing (unsurprisingly) brings players with the wrong motivations (extractors)

  • Another counterpoint is that an overfocus on traditional channels can lead to a situation of “abandoning” your community (see Night Crows)

• The solution: A mix of Web3 community building to bootstrap your game and transition to traditional UA to scale when it reaches its launch stage?

  • Will it work? We have yet to see good examples of this approach

GAMING TGEs IN 2025

• Despite a (fairly) promising start at the beginning of this year, it has become obvious that the appetite for gaming tokens has been minimal:

  • ~21 gaming tokens launched so far. 6 of the less relevant ones were excluded from the above list

  • 9/12 tokens that were tracked on the 25th of February continued to trend down (of course BTC’s downtrend plays an important role here)

  • We continue to see the trend of a high FDV at TGE and then a slow (or even fast) trend down

  • The two largest launches this year are Sonic and B3, having a similar narrative:

    • First proper gaming infra for Solana and Base

• The overall gaming token market has been underperforming as well, as illustrated by Jon Jordan. Even though this figure is from Jan 28, I bet the same chart but today wouldn’t provide a much prettier picture

• Upcoming launches:

  • Rumble Kongs (FAME) on March 11, Defi Dungeons (GOLD) on March 19, and Low Life Form’s (SPICE) in March

  • Other than that, we have a couple of announced tokens which could launch in the next few months, like Wildcard (WC), RCADE Network (RCADE), Hatchlings (HATCH), Paradise Tycoon (MOANI), and maybe even MapleStory Universe’s MXNPC

• On the topic of MSU, 1mpal wrote an interesting post recently on why the token’s success will be important to the South Korean crypto gaming sentiment

ON THE RISE

• Axie Infinity announced Atia’s Legacy, a new MMO (in early stages)

• Nick Metzler announced he’s building a game using ReplyCorp’s tech stack

• Wonder Wars is launching a new collection on Ronin: The Wonder Pass

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