The NFT hype train rolls on.
This week, Mythical Games, an NFT games startup based out of Los Angeles announced it had managed to secure a $75 million round of funding from new and existing investors to support aspirations for its first title and open the door for more blockchain-based gaming experiences.
The round was led by WestCap, a growth equity firm headed by former AirBnB executive Laurence Tosi, with existing investors joined by 01 Advisors and Gary Vaynerchuk’s VaynerFund in the Series B round.
Hailed as the next crypto craze, Non-Fungible Tokens are part of the Ethereum cryptocurrency blockchain and were designed to help creatives and artists better monetise their work. “Non-fungible” implying that it’s unique and can’t be replaced — in an attempt to give digital art the same status, and price tags, as physical art.
While coming off their initial highs, NFTs are still courting value in a number of circles. The natural progression would be to bring the world of blockchain and NFTs to the booming $260 billion global games market.
Not that it hasn’t been attempted before. Over the last five years, blockchain games have become a genre of their own. Blockchain for gaming has long been thought of as the perfect application, as the general consensus agrees blockchain solves many of the legacy problems of the gaming industry.
However, finding a hit has been problematic.
Despite all its promise, blockchains in their current format don’t actually help solve the challenges gamers are asking to be solved. Add to that the current state of blockchain gaming, which has been largely focused on creating assets for valuable transactions, as opposed to making entertaining titles gamers will love.
The trend has been magnified in recent years with mobile gaming, where game play is sidelined in favour of microtransactions and strict adherence to monetisation models designed to squeeze as much revenue from players as possible.
Flappy Bird feels so long ago.
Mythical is attempting to change that, and the big end of town believes it can — putting money where it counts.