Gm lovely people and AI scrapers - hope those of you who went to Gamescom had a blast. Before we jump in, all you blockchain gaming professionals take a minute to fill out the survey for the Blockchain Game Alliance about the current state of affairs. (Heads up: you probably shouldn’t shill your latest bag in the free text fields)

Anywho, today we’re talking onchain summer, sporty men in tight clothes and the latest from The Big Blockchain Game List:

• The Base Gaming Wave

• Change Log

• NFL Rivals Kickoff

• August Game Recap

• Other News

The Base Gaming Wave

Coinbase’s Onchain Summer event for Base has brought in a new wave of NFT drops, highlighting cheap transaction costs with free daily mints. The past month has seen a range of different promotions and a few highlights from web3 games—including the re-emergence of Kevin from Pixelmon.

As a marketing campaign, Onchain Summer has proven to be an effective way to introduce users to Base and the games participating in the event.

The ongoing ClashMon drop from Iskra offered an NFT Mystery Box to participants, resulting in the game recording +150% UAW growth. Similarly, Parallel’s starter pack mint, which included beta access to the game, increased its UAW by +4,250% and helped it become the fastest-growing game of the week.

Atari went a slightly different route compared to Parallel and Iskra. Rather than offer in-game assets, the Atari Summer Camp mint featured an NFT of the Atari Summer Camp and collection of physical merch that could be redeemed for NFT holders. The physical claim provides a unique take compared to the other On-Chain Summer collections, and provides a way for Atari to participate without currently having a web3 game.

It does seem that Atari’s looking to make moves in this space though. Their collaboration with Base and hint at a “special easter egg” for holders later this year, alongside Nolan Bushnell’s strong support for web3 games in an interview with Yat Sui, suggest that a web3 title from Atari could be in the works.

Overall, Onchain Summer has been more fun than expected and has proven to be incredibly effective at boosting Base usage and Web3 gaming activity. Hopefully, these gaming drops are the start of more game activity coming from Base in the future.

Change Log

• Sorare launched long-format competitions that last eight game weeks with bigger card and cash prizes.

• Parallel patch 0.21 is now live with some card balancing, new missions asses and bug fixes.

• DeFi Kingdoms launched a new PvE feature "Void Hunt: Mad Boar".

• Big Time Patch 0.27 introduced new objectives and quest lines.

• Gunzilla Games released its first trailer for the upcoming Avalanche-based battle royale game Off The Grid.

• Seedworld Seed Pods public mint is now live.

• Wild Forest joined the Ronin Network and opened registration for their open closed alpha.

August Game Recap

We’ve got the latest report from The Big Blockchain Game List, covering all the new game announcements and launches from the past month.

In August, we saw 39 new games added to the list, a 4.4% increase from last month for a total of 914 games. That’s still around 1% of the games on Steam, but we’re still early and this space is moving quick.

Ethereum definitely stole the show for gaming this month with four new games and two high-profile announcements. Zynga officially entered web3 gaming with its announcement of Sugartown during the GamesBeat Summit Next conference. We’re also still reeling from nWay’s Wreck League announcement at the beginning of the month, which promises a robot-fueled, Street Fighter-type PvP experience.

Beyond that, Cardano (5), Aptos (3), IMX (3), and Polygon (3) ranked in the top five for new titles, and Dark Eden M on Wemix Play was the only game on the list to be marked as discontinued.

As always, much love to The Big Blockchain List and make sure to show them some love on X.

NFL Rivals Kickoff

The mobile football game NFL Rivals by Mythical Games has been fully launched just in time for the NFL season. The game offers a broader selection of players and teams and allows gamers to purchase upgraded player cards within the app to enhance their rosters. Since its release in April, the game has been downloaded over two million times. It is currently ranked second in the Sports game category, only behind the computer lab staple from Miniclip - 8 Ball Pool.

Tokenized trading cards aren't exactly a revolutionary use of blockchain technology, alongside the in-game currency ("credits") required to buy them being off-chain too. However, the token structure again shows the builder's commitment to user experience and a more immersive gaming experience. This boosts engagement on the player side, abstracting away some of the trauma felt when mentioning gaming and crypto - or even just NFTs. Regardless of whether you're buying in your favorite game - tabbing out, exiting, or swiping out of an app is a pain in the ass.

The game boasts a more than healthy 4.7 out of 5 rating off of nearly 43,000 ratings. However, there has already been backlash from some. The negative reviews echo it being pay-to-win, with stronger players costing more credit, giving an unfair advantage to those who can afford to spend more. The skill-to-boost ratio seems off, but balancing game mechanics is no easy feat, and when you throw in monetary value, it can get more dicey still. Although challenging, this is something that EA Sports has had to do with their Ultimate Team mode, granting scrubs like me no better feeling than beating an entire TOTY team with your rag-tag team.

Other News

• Animoca Brands finally released its 2022 financial report, reporting $402M in bookings, $469M in liquid assets, and a venture portfolio of 380 companies.

• Mystic Moose is launching the Planet Mojo Marketplace for Mojo Melee NFTs.

• Cardles set its public beta date for September 10.

• Yuga’s Otherside open beta is slated to kick off in September.

• WAGMI Games partnered with Opensea to be the exclusive marketplace for WAGMI Games assets.

• Pre-registration is now available for Metal Core’s open beta.