Building a Blockchain-Based Gaming Community
Banger Games, a blockchain-based gaming startup, has raised €10 million to become the first gaming hub that aggregates, organizes, and informs players' gaming experiences, while also adding a second layer of rewards based on in-game and community objectives, regardless of game, publisher, or platform.
Avalanche, Shima Capital, GSR, Flori Ventures, Poolz Ventures, G20, LucidBlue Ventures, Belobaba Fund, Squares Capital, CSP DAO, Halvings Capital, OIG Capital, and BigCoin Capital are among the investors in the round. Angel investors included Jaynti Kanani, co-founder of Polygon, and DAOs and communities like Neo Tokyo.
Banger Games sees players as humans, not goods, while the gaming business has grown more focused on money, walled gardens, microtransactions, and less on enjoyment. Gamers will be able to compete, push themselves, earn, trade, and enjoy their gaming experience to the utmost on Banger Games.
Rigorous ticket size limitations were imposed to prevent a single significant investment from dominating the round. Banger Games aspires to create a community-driven project in which the individual voices of community members may make a difference. This may be jeopardized if a single or small number of investors had disproportionate power.
Borja Villalobos, CEO at Banger Games, said:
As the industry has exploded in different directions ( Crypto, Metaverse,VR, Indie Publishers, Play to Earn) we are certain that gamers feel more disconnected than ever. Banger is the platform aimed at unifying this ever increasing ecosystem into one central point in the gaming universe.
Smart contracts will be used to perform automatic SMART Tournaments on the platform. Banger has already been testing a closed beta on the enormously popular Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO). It will also contain sophisticated features like a Battle Pass, in-game achievements, an anti-cheat client developed in collaboration with IBM, and peer-to-peer cloud gaming, which will allow players to share their idle processing power. IBM, Chainlink, and Polygon are technical integrations that assist Banger Games. Gamers will be rewarded with NFTs, Banger Coins, and various additional prizes provided by well-known businesses and influencers.
Publishers will also profit with an SDK that will enable any video game, even non-blockchain titles, to be connected to the Banger Games ecosystem. They'll have access to new monetization methods, as well as community funding and investment possibilities.
The Rise of Gaming and Blockchain
When it became evident that bitcoin wasn't the sole use for blockchain, it was hailed as a game-changer. Now, its game-changing applications seem to be more hype than reality, and many believe it is overhyped.
This is not the case with video games. Experts believe the sector is about to transform and that gaming will be the first genuine use case for blockchain. Blockchain can reorganize the industry, turn the tables on the dominant console market, establish a multiverse, and make games more immersive and boundary-less than ever before. The way gaming overcomes the remaining obstacles will serve as a model for other sectors seeking mass adoption.
The principal use of blockchain in the gaming industry is, in a word, liquidity. Because gamers are already used to tokenization, blockchain's implementation in gaming is a no-brainer in many aspects. Virtual money was first used in some of the first games. Games have progressed and merged with the internet to the point that real-world (fiat) cash may now be used to buy in-game gold and stuff. To the displeasure of the game's producers, transactions often take place outside of the game. Blockchain has the potential to create rules and justice in in-game money and asset transactions and connect them to the real world in practical ways.
This might be especially advantageous for the free-to-play model popularised by Fortnite, in which in-game purchases (such as skins) paid by digital currency account for the bulk of gaming income.
Epic Games' Fortnite's popularity might be a foreshadowing of blockchain's gaming triumph. Fortnite was the highest-grossing game in history in 2018, with $2.4 billion in revenue. Free-to-play games accounted for 80% of all worldwide gaming income in 2018, with free-to-play titles grossing 458 percent more on consoles than in 2017.
A second use is in the realm of structure. So far, blockchain games have been relatively straightforward, falling into one of two categories: decentralized or hybridized. In the first model, the game is entirely operated on a blockchain, which means that the creator cannot change the game in any manner without the community's approval. The game is still administered from a central server in a hybridized paradigm, but the assets are sold via a decentralized marketplace. In any case, blockchain makes in-game assets as ownable as possible, giving them legitimacy and long-term worth.
According to a poll conducted by WAX, a blockchain network focusing on virtual objects, 62 percent of gamers would be more willing to invest in digital assets if they could be transferred across games. In comparison, 84 percent of developers would produce in-game things for the same reason. As the gaming industry shifts its attention to in-game assets, blockchain can address various associated issues, including preventing fake products, increasing scarcity, and encouraging additional purchases by allowing things to be transferred across games.
Image credits: Christian Wiediger, and Lorenzo Herrera.