The Global Game Developers Conference is coming. Which blockchain game projects have been screened for research reports?

Author: Climber, Golden Finance

"2024 will be the year of robots, the year of game AI, and the year of simulation."This is the judgment of Jim Fan, senior research scientist at Nvidia .

In the first quarter of this year, the Global Game Developers Conference (GDC), known as the "Spring Festival Gala" in the gaming industry, will be held in San Francisco on March 18. This event will host hundreds of conferences, covering AI, VR, AR, audio, vision, programming and other topics. Participating manufacturers include Microsoft, Google, NVIDIA, Meta, Adobe, EPIC, Unity, Roblox, Tencent, NetEase, etc. .

The NVIDIA GTC conference will also open at the same time, and games will also be one of the focus categories of the conference. Nvidia’s official website shows that in the field of games, this GTC conference will explore how to use generative AI and path tracing to create virtual characters and worlds.

It can be seen that games are very likely to become a hot narrative topic in the next period of time. Currently, NVIDIA has its own wealth creation effect, so with the blessing of these two major events, which blockchain gaming projects in the encryption industry are worth paying attention to? We might as well look for this in research reports from institutions and analysts.

1. First Class Warehouse

Merit Circle:

On December 21 last year, First Class Warehouse issued a notice regarding the DAO Chain Game Association Merit Circle’s 10,000-word research report pointed out that the current scale of the chain game guild track is not large, and the community size is not even comparable to the user scale of popular chain games. The scale of the entire track still has a lot of room for growth.

As for the head guild project, YGG has maintained a high growth potential by expanding the community and cooperating with popular games, and is the first choice for the more prestigious guilds in the track. Merit Circle has actively expanded its business scope through transformation and a multi-faceted layout in the upstream and midstream of chain games, but it is still in its infancy and needs time to be verified. However, GF's development is relatively flat and somewhat off-track, and its influence in the industry is weak.

In terms of risks, First Class Warehouse believes that Merit Circle’s income method is relatively single, mainly relying on the investment sector, but the market value of the investment part is relatively large, and the follow-up depends on the development of the chain game track and the games it invests in. Can there be good returns?

Fusionist:

In early December last year, First Class Warehouse concluded about the project that the Fusionist team has rich experience and the polishing of game content is basically mature. In the future, they can pay attention to the game’s operational strategy and bug risks. , as well as the number of players and activity of the game.

Big Time:

In October last year, First Class Warehouse pointed out in a research report that Big Time has sufficient development capabilities and operational experience for games and has great development potential in the future.

However, the mechanism that Big Time tokens can only be obtained in the game is a great test of player participation, and the project party may also change/adjust the game rules at any time according to the current status of the game. In addition, there are still some problems in the game version. Lots of game bugs.

Yield Guild Games:

In September last year, First Class Cang pointed out that YGG is committed to investing in and cooperating with early-stage high-quality chain games and creating different SubDAO organizations according to different regions and game projects. to expand its ecological territory.

From the perspective of business data, YGG is currently slightly better than GuildFi in terms of community scale and cooperative game quality and quantity. From the perspective of community scale, YGG has greater advantages, and YGG has laid out high-quality chain games. It may further benefit its development in the future; and judging from the financial situation of the two, GuildFi's financial situation is better than that of YGG.

However, YGG compares the overall development of the blockchain gaming circuit. But at present, the chain travel track is showing signs of recovery.

2. Penta Lab

Shrapnel:

On February 3 this year, Penta Lab produced a research report on Shrapnel— —The first on-chain AAA first-person shooter (FPS) masterpiece. The report pointed out that the game has multiple game modes of the first 3A-level FPS on the chain, and has both high-paying users and highly sticky players.

Strong project financing background: November 2021: Completed US$10.5 million in financing. April 2022: Completed a $7 million private placement round. October 2023: Completed Series A financing of US$20 million.

Main risks: NFT inflation risk, corporate governance rights competition risk, game acceptance risk being less than expected.

3. LD Capital

Fusionist:

On January 3 this year, LD Capital released the second version of Fusionist (ACE) Level market observation. The report concluded that its fundamentals are good. The main investor is Binance Labs. The core team comes from traditional game manufacturers such as Tencent. It is positioned as a blockchain AAA game and has close ties and cooperation with Korean game manufacturers and platforms.

Finally, it was mentioned that the game ecosystem as a whole is still in its early stages, and there are expectations for stable development. However, institutions also pointed out that ACE’s financing code structure is concentrated and there is the possibility of potential selling pressure.

4. Folius Ventures

Matr1x Fire:

At the end of November last year, Folius Ventures pointed out in a research report that from the current Judging from the game situation, the production quality of Matr1x Fire is top-notch among Web3 games and is solid even among Web2 games.

However, Matr1x’s daily active user (DAU) potential may be limited, and the game may have risks such as bugs, cheating, and plug-ins.

According to data, the MATR1X platform is an innovative cultural and entertainment platform of Web3 games + artificial intelligence (AI) + e-sports. Total financing exceeded US$20 million.

5. Footprint

Footprint Analytics, a blockchain data analysis platform, pointed out that full-chain games are a popular narrative direction for the future chain gaming circuit. Full on-chain game refers to a game in which game logic and data are completely stored on the blockchain.

Based on this, the platform provides game projects in various subdivisions of the full-chain game sector, as follows:

Engine:

< p>The current mainstream full-chain game engines include: MUD, DOJO, World Engine (Argus), Keystone (Curio), Paima Engine, etc.

Developer tools:

ZKWASM: Innovated by Delphinus Labs, it is a zkSNARK proof specially designed to execute wasm code and generate corresponding execution traces Zero-knowledge virtual machine (zkVM).

Web3Games.com: Positioned as a decentralized encrypted game ecosystem and blockchain network, it uses Layer2 technology to realize the full chaining of games.

PixeLAW: It is characterized by its layered architecture design, covering the core layer and application layer. The core layer is responsible for providing basic systems and components, while the application layer calls the interface of the core layer through smart contracts for game development. This architecture allows a game development environment to be built in minutes, and through the front-end and back-end separation strategy, developers only need to focus on writing back-end smart contracts, significantly simplifying the complexity of full-chain game development.

Full-chain game chain:

Layer 2 solutions: Arbitrum, Optimism, ZKSync, etc.

Customized game public chains: World Engine based on Cosmos, Curio based on OPStack, etc.

A new generation of general computing public chain: Starknet.

Individual game project:

Dark Forest: a landmark game in the whole chain of games, a space strategy game, using zkSNARKs to achieve information confidentiality, and an active community ecology .

Loot Survivor: Adventure game, using Cairo language to write smart contracts, Play2Die economic model.

Treaty: A strategy game on the Sui chain that can sign smart contract treaties, resource development and trade.

Wolf Game: Resource collection and breeding game, risk agreement mechanism, pledge and delegation modes.

GoL2: is a Game of Life simulation built on StarkNet that can be combined with AI-generated content technology.

LootRealms: It is an infinite strategy game on StarkNet. Players need to run the country and build an army to protect resources.

Briq: Allows the creation of NFT building blocks on StarkNet.  

SUI 8192: It is a mobile game, all logic and state changes are on the Sui chain.

NoGame: It is a space-themed MMORPG game.

SkyStrife: Featuring fast-paced RTS combat, the community can develop Three Kingdoms games and more based on it.

Game platform:

matchboxDAO: is a platform for incubating games in the Starknet ecosystem. It supports developers by hosting events and is also directly involved in incubating game projects.

Cartridge: It is a Starknet game aggregation platform, similar to Steam, which not only provides game experience but also serves as game infrastructure. It aggregates multiple Starknet games and advances Dope Wars development.

0xPARC: Founded by the founder of Dark Forest, it focuses on exploring the frontiers of full-chain games.

Composable Hub: It is an aggregation platform under Composablelabs that focuses on full-chain games. It is an early platform that focuses on full-chain games.

Summary

At present, the chain game sector has not yet fully exploded. Although many chain game projects mentioned in the above research report have experienced significant growth, they are still There is room for imagination and the possibility of the explosion of other related currencies.

The convening of the Global Game Developers Conference will continue to heighten the atmosphere and popularity of the game track. Coupled with NVIDIA's help, the blockchain game track may not usher in a rising trend in the future. Among them, the most noteworthy project is the dual-concept combination game of AI×game.