Mighty Action Heroes Raises $10M
https://venturebeat.com/2022/07/26/mighty-bear-games-raises-10m-for-mighty-action-heroes-web3-game/
Mobile developer Mighty Bear Games announced the completion of a $10M token sale led by Framework Ventures to fund it’s first Web3 game. With a strong need for Web3 games to be built by developers with actual game development pedigree, it’s good to see games like Mighty Action Heroes receive funding in this economy. It may be a little bit late to the funding party for 2022, but the cross-platform Battle Royale game looks like a strong contender to help push Web3 games forward. The development team at Mighty Bear Games comes with a solid background of successful games like Disney Melee Mania and Butter Royale for Apple Arcade. Mighty Action Heroes itself will be built on learnings from Butter Royale, but unlike that game, it won’t be limited to Apple Arcade or even mobile as they plan for it to be a cross-platform game starting with web then moving to mobile. Starting with web for a mobile game is an interesting tactic, but makes sense in the context of Web3 games where working with blockchain interaction like wallets and marketplaces can be difficult on mobile. Like many games that have been announced this year, the game will be on the Polygon network.
While many of the first wave of NFT games repeated many of the economic mistakes of Axie Infinity, newer games like MAH are trying to learn and adapt. A trend somewhat popularized by Thetan Arena is allowing players to play for free and segregating the earning of tokens to players who have invested in the game through NFTs, while trying to make sure earning is relative to spend for sustainability. In terms of monetizing the Web3 elements, the game is focused more on market trade fees rather than directly selling to players. Mighty Bear Games is also following the trend of planning to develop multiple games that use shared assets as part of an overall Web3 ecosystem.
As user acquisition becomes more difficult it makes sense for developers to look for ways to retain gamers within a publisher’s catalog of games and cultivate a long-term community, something Web3 has been particularly good at. Mighty Bear Games plans to use NFT PFPs to engage the community this summer and even provide game utility such as early access in Q4 2022. Mighty Action Heroes won’t be without competition though as it’s going to potentially be going head to head with Blast Royale from First Light Games, another mobile Web3 Battle Royale taking some similar approaches in terms of tokens, NFTs and equipment systems. The game is designed to support up to 60 players in a match and has ambitions of being the first Web3 esports game, something they won’t be alone in attempting.
The Battle For Metaverse Standards
https://www.oma3.org/post/a-new-consortium-dao-for-the-web3-metaverse
While blockchains have often found themselves competing to be the dominant standard, the real battle for the future has been over the “metaverse”. Late last month a group of large companies including Meta, Microsoft, Epic Games, Adobe, Nvidia, Sony, Unity announced a joint group known as the Metaverse Standards Forum. In seeming response to a group of Web 2 companies vying for control over what the metaverse could be, a group of Web3 game developers announced the forming of a DAO “consortium” known as OMA3. Members are a mix of larger brands like Animoca Brands and Dapper Labs alongside popular Web3 games including Alien Worlds, Splinterlands and Upland. The battle then becomes a top down approach from large incumbents or a bottom up approach from a new generation of upstarts. There’s also a clear difference in how fundamental to the metaverse the blockchain should be.
Everyone involved in both these projects comes in with some implicit biases in terms of what technology should have an influence over the standards. Companies like Epic and Unity will want its game engine technology incorporated, Microsoft and Sony will want its consoles well supported, and virtual worlds like The Sandbox and Decentraland will want to be foundational metaverse worlds. Decisions over how standards evolve was a topic well addressed by Raph Koster in a recent interview on the Naavik Metacast. In the episode he mentions that he was part of attempts to develop meteverse standards decades ago and it struggled to find traction then. He also notes that more often than not, standards are declared by fiat from big money, rather than democracy. That of course gives low odds for the success of OMA3 or other grassroots efforts. There has been some definite struggles for Meta as it not only posted a $2.8B loss for Q2, the FTC also announced an antitrust related lawsuit to block the acquisition of VR fitness app Supernatural.