Gm players!

Get ready for an infrastructure-packed edition of Web3 weekly.

Before we hop in, congrats to the Nouns Esports Dota 2 team for qualifying for The International 2023. I like to think that we helped manifest this with the title of our dive into their community owned esports model. On a serious note, we are feeling nounish and can’t wait to watch the team compete!

In Europe, we are very jealous of those of you at Gamescom—over here, we will be drowning our sorrows by ripping Parallel packs instead. Anywho, we’ve got news to chat about, so let’s get cracking.

Here’s today’s program:

• NFTb Gaming Hub Launches on SKALE Network

• Change Log

• Avalanche Beam Hits Mainnet

• Other News

NFTb Gaming Hub Launches on SKALE Network

NFTb has launched its new gaming platform on the SKALE Network, bolstering its supported ecosystems. SKALE Network was featured in last week’s trending games and was proven earlier in the year as the world’s fastest blockchain in a study by Dartmouth. This collaboration promises to bring the network’s efficiency and speed to NFTb’s user base. Gamers can anticipate smoother gameplay, while developers receive wider support to innovate. Outside of the technicalities of the collaboration, this is the joining of two communities. We only have good things to say about the members of the SKALE crew showing us love on our post last week.

What is SKALE

SKALE Network is a network built for gamers, not only with a priority on speed and latency but also focusing on the experience of its users, mainly in the form of removing costly gas fees. This is done by developers subsidizing costs for end users by paying for the network activity in advance.

SKALE took 3 out of the 5 trending games last week, and their reign continues this week with two titles leading activity with Gamifly and STARZPLAY Fantasy Sports. Another popular game on the network, Cryptoblades, was a large success for the network and game, with more than 20,000 users transferring their assets to SKALE Network once supported.

NFTb is a multi-chain Gaming Hub and social marketplace currently on Skale, Polygon, and BNB. The platform offers a range of functions to its users, from social infrastructures to customizable royalties and free trading for guild partners. The NFTb launchpad provides support for projects looking for early stage funding with accelerator programs for more mature projects. NFTb is backed by Binance Labs, Polygon Studios, Klaytn Foundation & Oasis Protocol.

Change Log

• Citizen Conflict has launched alpha with a cash prize tournament.

• Mighty Action Heroes added social login support via Sequence.

• Rogue Nation updated its armory with new weapons, including the Mutiny Shotgun.

• MapleStory Universe partnered with Chainlink, adding new game infrastructure using Chainlink Verifiable Random Function (VRF).

• Everseed added new pets, maps, and trails in its closed alpha v3.0 update.

• Eclipse of Edenhorde released in open alpha on Beam.

• Aradena: Battlegrounds adds 20 new cards ahead of tomorrow’s Beta Showdown 3 tournament.

• Wrecked League’s box reveal is happening tomorrow.

Avalanche Beam Hits Mainnet

Back with more gaming infrastructure news, the gaming-focused Avalanche Subnet, Beam, officially hit mainnet this week. Developed by Merit Circle DAO in collaboration with Ava Labs, Beam aims to provide a seamless environment for developers to deploy web3 games and a community platform for gamers.

Merit Circle initially announced the launch of four titles on Beam, including Trail Xtreme, which previously gained mobile virality with over 250m downloads across app stores. The ecosystem will also feature an AMM and marketplace (Sphere) to facilitate asset management within its ecosystem.

Sure, the developer-friendly environment and “gaming optimized” design are valid reasons for builders to launch on Beam—although, I don’t think calling themselves the “only blockchain built for gaming” ever really held true. More so than the technical aspects, the most significant driving force to bring developers to Beam will likely be Merit Circle.

Merit Circle has arguably the widest reach of any gaming DAOs in the space to date. The DAO features investments, gaming, studio, and infrastructure teams, as well as an industry-wide list of partners, including Illuvium, DCG, Spartan Capital, and Maven 11.

Merit Circle’s treasury is currently sitting at $94m, almost double that of Nouns and about $24m more than YGG. Unlike YGG, Merit Circle holds around 30% of its treasury in cash, which in part has helped it whether the bear market while YGG’s treasury has crashed from $845m to $70m over the past two years.

Beyond the broad reach, big names, and massive treasury, developers will likely be attracted to Beam because of Merit’s MC token. MC will be the native gas token of Beam and a portion of the gas will be burned for each transaction. Beam presents a strong opportunity for developers to build in an environment where the infrastructure provider has its own game developers and receive unique opportunities by working with the token issuer of an already established project.

While the infrastructure narrative has merit (nice), there’s also nothing stopping developers from building on the same subnet infrastructure as Beam. Possibly as a sign of support from Merit Circle and the chance to be on a chain with a soon-to-be long list of games and infrastructure, we’ll likely be seeing games transition to Beam in the near future.

Other News

• Ubisoft and Amazon team up with Oasys for a $42K Web3 gaming hackathon.

• Champions Arena launched on Gala Games.

• Boston Consulting Group posted a decision tree on whether projects should be built on blockchain.

• Might Action Heroes released an updated whitepaper with new features, game economy expansions, and more.

• BinaryX launched a web3 gaming-focused online hackathon with up to $20k in prizes.

• KresusLabs launched a Polygon marketplace for its “SuperApp” for users to access gaming, NFT, and DeFi assets.

• Interoperable gaming token provider Portal partnered with esports team M80.

• Nouns Esports is heading to TI12.

• Yuga Labs’ CEO (Ex-Google) says that “Google had early BAYC vibes” on Rug Radio.

ggs