Gaming Chronicles focuses on curating the latest crypto gaming news every week.
You will find the latest news, educational content, and game reviews.
TLDR :
Anichess: $CHECK in Q4
Seedphrase acquires Wolf Game
Beezie’s strategic fundraise
🗞️ NEWS
SEEDPHRASE ACQUIRES WOLF GAME
We’ve talked a good amount about Wolf Game recently, in GC NEWS 125, when they teased that they were joining Abstract, and in GC NEWS 130, amidst the shutdown of Pixel Vault.
Finally, this week, Seedphrase announced that they reached an agreement to take ownership and creative control of the game. A deal that has been in the making for at least 2 months
According to the Wolf Game Twitter, the title will relaunch this week. This version of the game will come with a couple of changes, Seedphrase said:
“This new chapter is a partial reset designed to keep the game familiar for OGs while remaining fresh and exciting for newcomers.”
He also says that “WOOL will burn”. One key problem of the Wolf Game economy has been the rate of emissions of the WOOL token through Wool Pouches
During the game’s Blast era, when it launched Cave Game, single holders were able to heavily influence the price of the token. Hopefully, these problems can be resolved in this version
They’re building a “smarter ecosystem” with new gameplay modes and a community-first approach
Earlier this year, Wolf Game tried to migrate to SOL but failed to do so after community backlash and undid the migration of the assets. The main issue was that the OG community didn’t feel valued
The team will expand its lore and forge collaborations beyond Web3
I am curious whether this means that Wolf Game is becoming a more accessible game, as its earlier game modes are quite degen
For Cygaar (core contributor of Abstract), Wolf Game was one of the first onchain games that he played with, making this a full-circle moment
Bry Disanto (Wolf Game OG) had a great post on his ideas (assumptions) about the positioning of the new Wolf Game. Here are a couple of the highlights summarized, but I advise you to read the whole thing:
He expects a game reset, but NFTs will determine your positioning. Thinking of it as building a “gamified mining rig”
There will be a new token, with the existing WOOL token to factor in
Sheep and Wolves will be needed to mine the new token
Aggressive token sinks and burns for the new token
There will be multiple game modes that will compound on top of each other
Lastly, he ends with the notion that the OG community is still around and charged up. Plus, that Seedphrase is a very sharp individual in the trenches, who knows how to rally people. The perfect fuel for the Wolf Game Renaissance?
In a way, it is also similar to the recent CTO of Bigcoin
BEEZIE’S STRATEGIC FUNDRAISE
This week, Beezie announced that they raised an undisclosed amount in a round led by Moonrock Capital, with participation from Devmons, Legendary, Adam Cochran, and others
Funnily enough, a fund called Charizard Capital participated as well. The “Home of the Strategic Charizard Reserve”. They have a live token called $ZARD, and every buy and sell of it contributes to the acquisition of more rare Charizard cards (collection)
Beezie is a digital claw machine. Users pay a fee to play, followed by an animation of a claw machine that grabs an item, which then reveals what they’ve won. All pulls are graded, authenticated, and vaulted at Brink’s
It’s very similar to platforms such as Courtyard, Phygitals, and others. Beezie just uses a different animation for the pulls
Beezie also has a multi-category in which players can pull not only Pokémon cards, but also One Piece Slabs, sneakers, Labubus, and more
Upon receiving an item, users will receive a “SWAP offer” (buyback offer) to instantly sell back the collectible. This offer expires after 15 minutes
According to Memento Research, gachapon makes up 90-99% of all volume across 4 of the largest Pokémon RWA platforms, and marketplace volume is only a very small % of it. This also means the majority of revenue is made through pack margins, fees, and buybacks
Beezie’s website has a claw tracker, which displays that over 66K pulls have been made, with 60K+ swaps, meaning the platform has bought back ~90% of pulls so far
If you spent some time on Twitter recently, you would’ve noticed the Pokémon RWA market exploded, and you might wonder if the top is in. Niko posted an interesting piece on this topic called Long Nostalgia, and ended it with this quote:
“So long as Pokémon exists, Pokémon fans will exist. And as long as people are willing to pay any price for the ache of nostalgia, the Pokémon bull market will never truly end.”
We also pulled a few gachas ourselves on Beezie during Sidelined yesterday, as 0xDamien hooked us up with some free pulls (thank you!). It was a lot of fun
ANICHESS: $CHECK IN Q4
Recently, Anichess, the “next generation, magical chess game” (chess with special abilities), announced the launch of the $CHECK token, which is coming in Q4 under the Checkmate Ecosystem (Foundation)
Anichess is a company founded by Animoca Brands in mid-2023. That same year, they raised $1.5M in a seed round. Last year, in April, they raised another $1.8M
The game is being developed in partnership with Chess.com, the largest chess-playing website in the world.
Play Magnus Group, the chess entertainment and edu platform, founded by world champion Magnus Carlsen, was acquired by Chess.com in 2022. As part of the deal, they merged the product offerings, plus Carlsen became a Chess.com ambassador. This explains Carlsen’s connection to Anichess
In November 2023, they announced him as an official partner of the game
The Anichess team is pushing the game outside of Twitter through Instagram, TikTok, and Twitch, accumulating over 100M in views
On TikTok, their most popular videos are in partnership with chess influencers, with their most popular video having over 6M views
Regarding its crypto-related efforts, Anichess released a small-supply NFT collection (960 pieces) in July this year. 10% of the $CHECK token supply is allocated to these holders, with a distribution based on rarity
Additionally, they announced a public sale through the Kaito Launchpad. Selling a max of 2% of their supply at a $35M FDV
Furthermore, they released Anichess Puzzles, a mini-game on Base, that will distribute 1% of the $CHECK supply to the overall leaderboard. Plus, they just announced they will migrate to Abstract
Outside of Anichess, the Checkmate Ecosystem is developing a different product called Vibecheck, a “community-powered platform for strategy games, built with AI” (i.e., Remix, but for strategy games)
Overall, Anichess has the right distribution partner (Chess.com) and is going hard on partnerships with influencers to break into this audience. By introducing novel game mechanics (spells) into the game, it aims to break open this genre and open it to a larger audience
When reading the comments on their TikTok, I do wonder whether the existing audience is open to this format, as it disrupts how chess is currently played - “just play normal chess”
Lastly, we also saw a huge spike in the interest in chess in late 2024, driven by the popularization of chess streaming and content. Arguably, Anichess can be more fun to watch, so I’d be interested in whether it can thrive through that medium
FLASH NEWS
FDF update includes a new founder pack sale, improved game eco, and more
OpenSea’s final pre-TGE phase of rewards went live this week
YGG Play partners with GIGACHADBAT (a baseball game by Delabs)
🆕ALPHA CORNER
Early Games: Gib Meme
Join our Telegram chat for daily updates & alpha as well: https://t.me/raidenalpha