Interest in crypto gaming has skyrocketed because more money is being invested and well-known Web 2.0 game companies are looking to get into the business.
In an exclusive interview with TechCrunch, Robbie Ferguson, president, and co-founder of Immutable, an Australian web3 game firm, claimed that the company has formed a $500 million fund for developers and startups. Only TechCrunch was able to get this information, and they were the only ones.
For web3 games and NFT, enterprises to get funding, Ethereum’s layer-2 platform, Immutable X, will be used.
Immutable’s major goal, according to Ferguson, is to make web3 gaming more widely available in the future. A few examples are GameStop, TikTok, OpenSea, and Illuvium, which all got their start on the site.
He said that the video game business had “one of the largest potentials in web3 that has ever existed,” according to his remarks. To put it simply: “The whole addressable market would be vast and significantly more than what gaming is now, with in-game stuff alone making up a $100 billion industry.”
At a 10% annual growth rate, the gaming sector is estimated to be worth $1 trillion in total assets.
The “mix of sites,” as Ferguson put it, refers to the variety of sources from which it was gathered. Though Immutable’s investment partners, foundation, and other sources contribute to the company’s ecosystem in various ways, it has its cash on hand as well as cash that is reflected on its balance sheet. This money may be put to good use by the Immutable ecosystem, which will benefit from it.
GameStop, BITKRAFT, Animoca Brands, Arrington Capital, and Double Peak, as well as King River Capital and Arrington Capital, will collaborate with the fund to explore new investment opportunities in web3 gaming and NFTs.
Immutable’s valuation was assessed at $2.5 billion in March when Temasek led a $200 million Series C investment in the firm. The web3 firms in which Immutable Ventures currently has financial holdings include StarkWare, Stardust, PlanetQuest, and Topology, amongst others.
Developing long-term games with a realistic in-game economy and the ability to draw 100 million to one billion players on web3 is currently the optimum time, according to Ferguson. My opinion is that a Web 2.0 game will be the source of the first one hundred million gamers. When it comes to NFT technology, a medium-sized game needs just a little amount of success before the game may enjoy its advantages from NFTs.
According to Ferguson’s estimates, middle-market gaming companies will be the first enterprises to promote web3 in the next twenty-four months. For the next two years, he expects this to continue.
It takes time to include web3 and make a terrific game, according to Ferguson. This is the most critical barrier to overcome. Hundreds of Triple-A games will be released over the following few years, with the first appearing in the next eight to twelve months.