Horizon Blockchain Games on Thursday announced they have secured $4.5 million in the third seed round. The funding comes as the company looks for a broader launch for SkyWeaver, a digital NFT card game, and a blockchain gaming wallet.
Horizon Blockchain GamesOpens a new window , a Toronto-based developer of online games, yesterday completed the third pre-Series A round of funding. The company pocketed $4.5 million in the round, taking the company’s total seed funding to $13.3 millionOpens a new window .
As evident from the name, Horizon Blockchain Games develops games on blockchain, a new-age technology primarily known for being the basis of cryptocurrency, and more recently non-fungible tokensOpens a new window (NFT).
The company also makes the tools necessary to enable other developers, studios, or companies to develop blockchain-based games. “We strongly believe that gaming and blockchain technology are a natural fit: as virtual worlds like video games are becoming social economies of their own, gamers also increasingly care about their digital identity, assets, and a fair participation for players and creators,†said Moritz Baier-LentzOpens a new window , Partner at BITKRAFT Ventures, one of the investors that participated in the round.
Others who participated in the round include gaming and blockchain investors CMT Digital, The Xchange Company, Khaled Verjee, and Zyshan Kaba.
The company has so far developed SkyweaverOpens a new window , a digital collectible and trading card game that Horizon Blockchain Games (HBG) released in 2019. Skyweaver has done reasonably well considering it is in private beta. Play Store downloads stand at 50,000+. HBG co-founder and Chief Storyteller Michael Sanders told Techcrunch that the game currently has 66,000 players.
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However, the company’s Sequence platform, previously known as Arcadeum, is what should drive the company’s business model in the coming years. Sequence is basically a crypto and NFT wallet that allows users to own, or trade any in-game items. The platform is powered by the most actively usedOpens a new window blockchain Ethereum, which is also the basis of the second-largest cryptocurrency in the world.
It is also a developer platform on which other developers could base their respective blockchain games. For instance, when Skyweaver will have a general rollout sometime in 2021, its players will be able to own cards as NFTs and will also be able to buy or sell them. The transaction is made possible by peer-to-peer and decentralized marketplace associated with Sequence.
Consider any non-blockchain game, let’s say Clash of ClansOpens a new window (CoC), as an example. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the game, in CoC, players can purchase assets such as elixir, gold, or character skins with money. If it were a blockchain game, these assets will be associated with a tangible value when selling, for example, extra gold.
More importantly, if players sell in-game digital assets right now, it doesn’t have the same value that blockchain provides, i.e., selling to other players legitimately.
Sequence leverages Web3Opens a new window , a “collection of libraries that allow you to interact with a local or remote ethereum node using HTTP, IPC or WebSocket.†Web3 is thus a collection of decentralized apps running on blockchain or a decentralized network of P2P computers/servers.
The Web3-driven decentralized web is presently a (not so) distant reality although Sanders expects the technology to be big in the future. “We really believe that in the next decade, every company is going to be a Web3 company and that every person with an internet connection will have a Web3 wallet. And that’s where we’re heading,†he told VentureBeatOpens a new window . “We’ve held this thesis since 2018. And it’s really wonderful to see more and more projects come online, with more validation.â€
Wrapping Up
Blockchain has undeniably altered the future of the internet, how people connect and transact, and since the past few years, even their source of entertainment. HBG isn’t the first to introduce blockchain gaming. Others such as Axie InfinityOpens a new window , CryptoKittiesOpens a new window , F1 Delta TimeOpens a new window , SorareOpens a new window had already laid the foundation.
And all these games have one thing in common: the games are focused more on ownership and by extension trading of digital assets, and not the gameplay itself. This is understandable considering we’re still in the early stages of blockchain gaming.
But gameplay becomes a secondary issue when the players have to deal with buying crypto, link wallets, and all other prerequisites of actually playing. The good news is that HBG’s Sequence platform could help in taking us a step closer to a seamless blockchain gaming experience. The same, however, cannot be said about the gameplay. Not yet anyway.
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