Infinity
Company
Documents about Infinity
An Introduction to Blockchain Gaming Infrastructure: How You Can Use It Today
This Naavik deep dive, produced in partnership with Forte and written by Maxime Eyraud, is the second essay in a series on building blockchain games.
- The article reports that over $500M in ETH and USDC was stolen from Sky Mavis's Ronin Bridge by a single individual, which it presents as a reminder that centralization allows for potentially disastrous attacks.
- Ramp's initial analysis found it reduced Axie Infinity's on-ramp to 19 steps and 12 minutes, compared with the previous flow of nearly 60 steps and an average onboarding time of 2 hours.
- According to Ramp's own analysis, its integration made onboarding on Sorare 40% faster and more streamlined.
136: It's Happening, Isn't It?
Event firm ReedPop, the company behind PAX, Comic-Con and EGX, will produce E3 2023, and the newsletter author reads this as promising for the show's revival.
- ReedPop, the firm behind PAX and Comic-Con, has been selected to produce E3 2023, marking a significant shift in the management of the industry's flagship event.
- The US video game market is projected to decline by 8.7% in 2022, with total spending expected to reach $55.5 billion due to economic pressures, hardware supply issues, and a quieter release calendar.
- Major publishers are increasingly bypassing centralized industry events in favor of independent, direct-to-consumer digital showcases that offer higher engagement and lower costs.
July 2022: Monthly Market Update
Blockchain gaming in July 2022 was in a consolidation phase: no industry-changing releases or NFT hype, but early signs of recovery as Bitcoin and Ethereum rebounded and fallout from the Luna crash faded.
- Total web3 gaming funding reached $291 million in July 2022, marking a 21% increase over June despite broader market volatility.
- Secondary NFT transaction volumes remained stagnant, continuing a downward trend that has returned to levels seen one year prior.
- Unique Active Wallets (UAW) for top blockchain games remained relatively flat in July, with casual titles like Solitaire Blitz showing significant growth while Arc8 saw a 35% decline in UAW.
Axie Infinity: Redemption or Ruin?
Axie Infinity entered a steep, multi-dimensional decline in 2022, and the evidence argues that its play-to-earn model is struggling to sustain itself.
- Axie Infinity is experiencing a critical ecosystem collapse, evidenced by a sustained loss of over 250,000 daily active users per month that the free-to-play Axie Origin update failed to reverse.
- The value of core ecosystem assets, including AXS tokens, SLP currency, and Axie NFTs, has plummeted between 82% and 99% from their historical peaks.
- The project's financial stability has severely deteriorated, with land NFT prices falling 94% from 2021 highs and the community treasury suffering an 81% write-down in total value.
How to Get Started in Blockchain Gaming
This Naavik and Forte deep dive, written by Matt Dion and dated June 8, 2022, is a guide for game developers beginning blockchain game development.
- The article identifies five foundational questions for developers, beginning with whether a blockchain is being used for the right reasons.
- The article states that if more people take money out of a game economy than put into it, the ecosystem is fundamentally unsustainable.
- For Thetan Arena, the article reports 171% and 199% increases in downloads and revenue within 60 days, compared with Heroes Strike's entire lifetime performance.
Land Value Tax in Online Games and Virtual Worlds: A How-To Guide
Lars Doucet and Dan Cook argue that virtual worlds containing land-like assets, including Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies, Final Fantasy XIV, and metaverse platforms, predictably suffer land crises.
- Land Value Tax (LVT) mitigates speculation by increasing the cost of holding scarce virtual assets, forcing land into the hands of players who will put it to its highest and best use.
- To calculate LVT, developers must distinguish between the value of 'improvements' (player-added value) and 'land' (inherent value), using the equation Total Market Value = Improvements Value + Land Value.
- Short-term leases with Vickrey auctions are the recommended implementation method for new games due to their simplicity and effectiveness in price discovery.
How TABS Creator Landfall Got Discovery Right!
Swedish indie studio Landfall, maker of Totally Accurate Battle Simulator (TABS), is profiled through an interview with CEO and game designer Wilhelm Nylund, followed by a roundup of game discovery and platform news from May 2022.
- Landfall Games successfully kickstarts multiplayer player bases by offering titles for free during the first 24 to 100 hours, resulting in three million downloads for Totally Accurate Battlegrounds and one million for Knightfall.
- Visual legibility and physics-based interactions are critical for market discovery, as they allow games to go viral easily through short-form video content like GIFs and YouTube clips.
- Sandbox and survival genres provide smaller development teams more flexibility than AAA genres because players prioritize creative experimentation over the high-polish standards required for competitive shooters or MOBAs.
Loot: The Epitome of Composability
The Loot project, launched in August 2021 by Vine creator Dom Hoffman, is presented as a seminal experiment in composable, bottom-up, community-driven blockchain applications.
- The Loot project represents a bottom-up, community-driven approach to blockchain gaming that contrasts with the centralized, VC-funded models of projects like Axie Infinity and The Sandbox.
- Loot assets consist of simple, text-based lists of RPG-style items, with no canonical visual representation, leaving the interpretation and development of the game world entirely to the community.
- The market capitalization for original Loot bags peaked at approximately $293 million on August 6, 2021, before declining to $35 million, representing a nearly 90% loss in value.
Two & a Half Gamers Session #12: Metacore, Niantic, and Industry Conference Guide
Episode #12 of the "two & a half gamers" podcast, published April 15, 2022 by Matej Lancaric, is a roughly 52-minute informal discussion of recent games industry news followed by an industry conference guide.
- Metacore incurred a $65 million loss despite a $20 million investment in television advertising, highlighting the challenges of scaling user acquisition through traditional media.
- The Ronin Network bridge exploit resulted in a $600 million loss for Axie Infinity, with investigations linking the heist to North Korean actors.
- CD Projekt Red reported $207 million in revenue for the 2021 fiscal year, reflecting the financial performance of major industry players during that period.
Sony's Epic Strategy
Sony's $1 billion investment in Epic Games, alongside an equal contribution from LEGO parent Kirkbi, values Epic at $31.5 billion and brings Sony's total commitment to $1.45 billion across three rounds (2020, 2021, and 2022) for roughly a 3% stake.
- Sony invested $1 billion in Epic Games, bringing its total stake to $1.45 billion and valuing the company at $31.5 billion to secure a 3% share.
- The partnership centers on integrating Sony’s intellectual property into Fortnite and leveraging Unreal Engine 5’s technical features, such as Lumens, Nanite, and MetaHumans, to improve production efficiency.
- Sony is shifting its business model from hardware-dependent sales to a service-based ecosystem, aiming to increase user lifetime value through a diversified portfolio of interrelated properties.
Breaking Point
Ubisoft's decision in April 2022 to end active development on Ghost Recon Breakpoint, rendering the game's Quartz NFT cosmetics effectively worthless, anchors an argument that blockchain gaming remains small-time despite evangelist predictions of imminent dominance.
- Ubisoft has ended support for Ghost Recon Breakpoint, effectively rendering its NFT-based 'Quartz' cosmetics worthless shortly after the company claimed it was seeing the 'endgame' for the platform.
- Major blockchain gaming projects are experiencing significant user declines, with Axie Infinity daily average users falling 30% in one month to approximately 107,000, and The Sandbox reporting a 29% drop to just 1,180 daily active users.
- Activision Blizzard is transitioning temporary QA staff to full-time contracts with pay increases, though the company has excluded the unionized cohort at Raven Software from this offer, citing legal obligations.
Axie Infinity NFT Sales Jump 350% Amid Game’s Reported Struggles to Retain Players
Axie Infinity's NFT sales surged more than 350% within 24 hours in early April 2022, even as the blockchain game showed signs of weakening player retention.
- Axie Infinity NFT sales volume surged over 350% in a 24-hour period following developer Sky Mavis' announcement of a $150 million fundraising effort to address a $625 million Ronin Network hack.
- Despite the spike in NFT sales, Axie Infinity experienced a 30% decline in daily active users (DAU) over the month leading up to April 2022, falling to approximately 107,240 players.
- The volatility in player retention highlights a structural reliance on financial earnings rather than organic gameplay engagement, distinguishing blockchain titles from traditional games like Fortnite or Candy Crush.