GameFi News: Tilting Point partners with Polygon Studios and LootRush raises $12M

SpongeBob and Warhammer mobile game scores Polygon partnership

Free-to-play mobile games publisher Tilting Point has entered a multi-year partnership with Polygon Studios to launch 10 Web3 games over the next two years. Polygon Studios and Tilting Point plan to help native Web3 game developers scale their games alongside free-to-play developer partners, as well as studios that want to bridge from Web2 to Web3 gaming.

The first three titles in the works are interstellar strategy game Astrokings from Korean developer AN games, which Tilting Point acquired earlier this year, virtual slot game The Walking Dead: Casino Slots, based on the AMC series, and Chess Universe, by Tilting Point’s partner developer Kings of Games.

Polygon Studios CEO Ryan Wyatt shared the company’s excitement about  “championing user ownership and immersive gameplay.” Founded in 2012, Tilting Point’s most popular free-to-play games include Warhammer: Chaos & Conquest, Narcos: Cartel Wars and SpongeBob: Krusty Cook-Off.

Today we're announcing our partnership with @0xPolygon to bring the best of Web3 tech to our devs and their games! Read here, in Samir's own words, how this will impact our model.#metaverse#blockchain#nft#cryptogaming#TiltingPoint#raiseyourgamehttps://t.co/hW8HOTFXH6

— Tilting Point (@TiltingPoint) May 5, 2022

T.E.A.M DAO raises $5 million Series A round

The Tokenized Esports Asset Management decentralized autonomous organization, or T.E.A.M. DAO, describes itself as the metaverse’s first Guild 3.0. The fantasy esports nonfungible token (NFT) league recently announced a $5 million Series A funding round co-led by Krust Universe and Animoca Brands. Other investors included Great South Gate, Shima Capital, Anti Fund, Algorand, GSR, NGC Ventures, Libra Ventures, Nexo Capital, EX Capital, CoinHako and Octava.

Krust Universe is an investment arm of South Korean tech giant Kakao. Animoca Brands also recently acquired two major video games publishers: Eden Games and Darewise Entertainment. 

According to T.E.A.M, the new funding will be used to further develop its technology infrastructure, expand the team and grow its player base. Its designated Supreme Leader stated that the company is leading a gaming-culture defining ecosystem for “noobs, amateurs and midtier gamers.” He added that the upcoming TEAM token public sale will “[catapult] crypto adoption into everyone’s daily life.”

@TEAMDAOcom completes a $5m SeriesA round co-led by @animocabrands + @Klaytn_official$TEAM
GreatSouthGate @shimacapital@antifundvc@GSR_io EverseCap @NGC_Ventures LibraCapVentures @NexoCapital ExCapital @coinhako RisingCap @Octava92275045https://t.co/iNQrGfOmni

— T.E.A.M DAO Tokenized Esports Asset Management (@TEAMDAOcom) April 28, 2022

Axie Infinity remains game with the highest market cap

According to the latest report by Crypto Head that assessed the top 50 play-to-earn (P2E) games on ChainPlay, Axie Infinity has a fully diluted market cap of $15.81 million. Cross Link came in a close second at $13 million and a third-placed Decentraland at $4.63 million. The average market cap value of all the crypto games studied is $1.25 million.

As for most Google-searched games in the past six months, Axie Infinity also takes the crown with over 29 million searches around the world. The second and third highest searched games, Bomb Crypto and Splinterlands, respectively, both had fewer than five million global searches.

Crypto Head also looked at crypto Twitter popularity and games with the most expensive tokens. Axie Infinity also garnered a place on those lists. 

LootRush wants to take NFT gaming mainstream

LootRush, an NFT marketplace for crypto gamers, closed on Thursday a seed round of $12 million led by crypto firm Paradigm, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz. Other backers included Y Combinator, Brex founders and several angel investors, including the founders of Axie Infinity, Plaid, Wildlife Studios, Dapper Labs and The Chainsmokers. 

According to the company, LootRush aims to become like Steam as a distributor of PC games, but for blockchain and NFT-based video games. It wants to eliminate barriers to entry for gamers to play Web3 games and is known for offering cost-effective NFTs. A blog post stated that “We will enable gamers to own NFTs and we help NFT owners find great players.”

1/ We’re very excited to announce our $12 million seed round led by web3 and crypto firm @paradigm, and with substantial participation from @a16z!

more https://t.co/hCWzq5ZY3f

— LootRush (@LootRushGames) May 5, 2022

Other GameFi News

STEPN is a Solana-based NFT mobile application that leverages GameFi elements such as move-to-earn to enable NFT sneaker holders to earn tokens as they walk. Made for fitness enthusiasts and those who want to get their daily steps in, this project is leading the move-to-earn movement and challenging users to cash in Green Satoshi Token (GST). 

Related: How blockchain games create entire economies on top of their gameplay: Report

Japanese video game publisher Square Enix intends to divest its popular Tomb Raider franchise for $300 million and invest the proceeds into blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud computing technologies. Cointelegraph previously revealed that Square Enix CEO Yosuke Matsuda’s plans to integrate NFTs into play-to-earn blockchain games.