US-based video game retailer GameStop officially launched its NFT marketplace on October 31 in partnership with the Australian-based Ethereum layer-2 blockchain, ImmutableX.
GameStop’s partnership with ImmutableX was first announced in February of this year, with the NFT marketplace having been in open beta since July.
GameStop NFT is bringing Web3 gaming collections to the masses with @Immutable.
The crypto market’s reaction to the official launch of the marketplace has been subdued, with data from CoinGecko showing ImmutableX’s price was up just 0.2 percent on the day, at the time of writing.
Web3 Gaming & Carbon Neutral NFTs
GameStop’s new NFT marketplace will allow users to play Web3 games currently being developed on ImmutableX, such as Illuvium, Gods Unchained and Ember Swords. Users of the marketplace will also be able to trade additional NFT collectibles and in-game assets.
In a statement released Monday, GameStop explained that the new marketplace ‘…unlocks access to web3 games and millions of world-class, NFT gaming assets to tens of millions of GameStop players and GameStop Powerup Pro loyalty customers across the United States.’
According to GameStop, the new marketplace will also allow fee-free and carbon-neutral NFT minting:
“The integration between GameStop and ImmutableX will unlock some of the biggest web3 games, which are currently being built on ImmutableX. In addition, the partnership will allow for 100 percent gas-free and carbon-neutral minting and trading on the Company’s NFT marketplace.”
GameStop Statement
GameStop Embraces Blockchain Technology
GameStop has been a leader among mainstream retailers in adopting blockchain technology.
In addition to partnering with ImmutableX, in May of this year, the video game retailer launched its own non-custodial crypto wallet. In July it partnered with Loopring to process transactions on its NFT marketplace and just yesterday the Sam Bankman-Fried owned crypto exchange FTX teased an upcoming partnership with GameStop.
Melbourne-based Australian crypto gaming startup Immutable has this week laid off at least 20 staff, many of them core members of its NFT trading card game, Gods Unchained.
News of the redundancies hit social media when one of the game’s original developers, James Wakeham, tweeted he’d been tapped on the shoulder and was now looking for work:
Bad news, me and a bunch of people just got made redundant at Immutable. I'm a senior level game designer with 7+ years experience and 4+ years leading the design on a live service TCG. Any help with jobs would help a lot. DM me. Help me feed my cat Oscar! (Oscar not need a job) pic.twitter.com/LQVgdRmKhv
The layoffs, which affect an estimated 6 percent of Immutable X’s total workforce, were jointly announced by recently appointed chief studio officer Justin Hulog and Immutable CEO and co-founder James Ferguson. Staff on leave were given just 24 hours’ notice to attend a meeting at which the pink slips were handed out.
Exponential Growth Gives Lie to Layoffs
Despite the layoffs, Immutable X appears to be growing exponentially. A spokesperson for the company said it had more than doubled its full-time headcount from 120 at the beginning of the year to 280, with plans to reach 360 by the end of the year.
Regarding this week’s layoffs, the spokesperson added that the company had “made a difficult choice” in conducting “a small reorganisation within Gods Unchained to help better enable us to achieve our goal of creating the next generation of Web3 games”.
That said, Gods Unchained’s player base has more than halved since early April from 22,000 unique players logged into the free-to-play game down to 10,000, as per data from Cards Unchained, a privately run site tracking the game. Immutable’s cryptocurrency token, IMX, which is used to trade assets in Gods Unchained, has also seen its value fall from about US$11 in November 2021 to just above $1.
However, according to a bullish internal memo circulated among Immutable staff this week, a reallocation of resources would see the company investing in roles to enable Gods Unchained to scale “to millions of players over the next year”.
Immutable X Still Aggressively Hiring
Post-redundancies, the only remaining workers on Gods Unchained are junior and C-suite staff. However, Immutable is looking to hire a creative director and UI (user interface) designer specifically for the project, as well as listing 22 other general vacancies for remote workers across Australia.
Immutable, the Sydney-based company behind the NFT-focused Ethereum scaling solution Immutable X, has announced the launch of its new US$500 million developer and investment fund:
We're launching the @Immutable Developer & Venture Fund worth $500M to accelerate the adoption of Web3 games & projects.
The so-named Immutable Developer and Venture Fund will help accelerate the growth of Immutable X by providing grants to, and investing in, the most promising projects building on the protocol, with a particular focus on fostering the growth of Web3 game development.
New Fund to Supercharge Adoption
The fund will provide investment and grants in both cash and crypto, with crypto funding in the form of Immutable X’s native token, IMX.
The ventures side involves partnerships with several large VC firms including BITKRAFT, Animoca, AirTree, GameStop and others. The fund will look to invest in the most promising projects building on Immutable X, providing them with the necessary resources to help them scale and launch successfully.
Grants will provide developers with financial support tied to project milestones, as well as technical and educational support to help them realise their project goals. Drawing on its experience in blockchain-based game development, Immutable X will provide guidance to grant recipients to support them to transition to blockchain gaming:
We’re taking the lessons learned from building two of the blockchain’s biggest games – Gods Unchained and Guild of Guardians – and hiring the smartest people from Web2 studios like Riot Games to make entering the NFT gaming world simple and rewarding for gaming studios.
James Ferguson, CEO and co-founder, Immutable
Web3 Gaming Presents Huge Opportunity
James’s brother Robbie Ferguson, president and co-founder of Immutable, sees Web3 gaming as an enormous growth area moving forward that Immutable X will be well placed to benefit from with the launch of this fund:
Gaming is bigger than movies and music combined, and is compounding by 10 percent every year. With the knowledge we have from building two of the blockchain’s biggest games in-house, we’re going to be providing the funding, expertise and infrastructure needed to grow this to a trillion-dollar ownable economy over the next decade.
Robbie Ferguson, president and co-founder, Immutable
Immutable X Focuses on Gaming
Founded in Sydney in 2018, Immutable X was designed specifically to bring scalability and affordability to Ethereum’s NFT ecosystem. The protocol is fast – able to process up to 9,000 transactions per second – and has zero gas fees and is carbon neutral.
Immutable X works by leveraging StarkWare’s zero-knowledge proof technology, which allows it to ‘roll-up’ thousands of transactions on its own network separate from Ethereum, and then commit them to the Ethereum blockchain in a single transaction.
Importantly, the land NFTs operate on Immutable X, a layer-2 scaling solution for ETH that enables cheaper and faster transactions. This intentional design was no doubt aimed to prevent exorbitant gas fees which have plagued other projects, most recently Yuga Labs’ ‘Otherside’, where US$157 million in ETH was burned.
The Land Sale Explained
According to Illuvium, the digital land parcels will confer various benefits in the upcoming PC and Mac game due for release later this year. In total, over a period of four days, close to 20,000 plots were sold to both speculators and gaming enthusiasts. Ultimately, the game will feature 100,000 land plots in total.
Among the initially offered 20,000 plots, 29 were retained by the developers for future giveaways, while two additional Tier 5 plots (the most valuable in the game) will be auctioned off later using a standard auction format. By contrast, the 19,969 plots were sold using a Dutch auction format whereby the price of plots were reduced until a buyer was found.
Land sale results. Source: Illuvium
Prices kicked off at 2 ETH (US$3,700) for Tier 1 plots, 6 ETH (US$11,100) for Tier 2, 20 ETH (US$37,000) for Tier 3, and 80 ETH (US$148,000) for Tier 4. While some plots attracted lofty valuations, they remain well shy of the highest price achieved to date, which was US$2.4 million for an Axie Infinity plot.
For more information on the land sale that concluded June 5, the video below offers a useful explanation:
Illuvium Gameplay
Players start off having landed on a foreign planet, Illuvium. They then encounter strange creatures known as Illuvials, which can be captured and used by the players in battle. Along the way, players earn rewards and experience points, allowing them to progress to more dangerous terrains of Illuvium.
Seven regions of Illuvium. Source: Illuvium
Throughout the game, players can purchase weapons and armour as NFTs that assist them in their quest and can also be resold within the in-game marketplace, which has not yet been launched.
According to the development team, the game is set for launch in Q3 of this year.
Australia-based Immutable X has joined forces with gaming company Kongregate to establish a US$40 million fund giving grants to developers who make blockchain games.
Together w/ @kongregate we're excited to launch a $40M developer fund 🎉
We're on a mission to enable a new generation of games to build on https://t.co/xJjCf8WWyx, making it the most inclusive space for innovation, community interaction & game discoveryhttps://t.co/MzFctPwURM
Immutable X is well-known in the blockchain gaming space and has also developed an ETH-based scaling solution to enable faster in-game transactions. This week, the company announced a US$40 million fund comprising an IMX token pool that will be awarded as grants to blockchain game integrations on Kongregate’s web-based gaming platform.
Developers are said to benefit from Kongregate’s end-to-end integration solution, which is designed to ensure that each game is a “fun and engaging experience for players”. Markus Lipp, Kongregate’s CEO, added:
We want our players to be owners in their personal gaming journeys. Blockchain technology allows us to give them a deeper experience in ways not possible with traditional games, from enabling players to help to shape what comes next in the storylines they love to being able to maintain their unique character across titles.
Markus Lipp, CEO, Kongregate
According to Lipp, the partnership with Immutable X would ensure that “our players have the best NFT experience possible with technology that brings true innovation to gameplay, while also ensuring it’s green and scalable”.
Robbie Ferguson, co-founder and president of Immutable X, saw the partnership as an opportunity “to help power the next generation of blockchain games”, adding:
With today’s launch of our blockchain developer fund, we’re excited to deepen our relationship with Kongregate as we work together to attract the best and brightest developers to build new titles on Kongregate’s relaunched Web3 platform.
Robbie Ferguson, co-founder and president, Immutable X
One Success After the Next
Immutable X is regularly making headlines these days, seemingly enjoying one success after another. After raising US$200 million earlier this year, strategic partnerships appear to be one of the key elements driving the company’s growth.
The Australian Web3 ecosystem has grown immensely over the past couple of years and is driven by cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.
The emergence of NFTs, DeFi, and decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs) has expanded the space. The days of ICO token raises have been superseded by building meaningful communities. Notable communities/projects in the space include Immutable, Synthetix, Sigma Prime, Maple Finance, and DAOunder, all of which have helped garner increasing interest in the ecosystem.
The branding surrounding Web3 has made the space more inviting than the nuanced word ‘crypto’ would have suggested a few years ago.
Aussie Blockchain History in Brief
pre-bitcoin 1970 -2000s: cypherpunk movement;
2009 – 2013: the birth of Bitcoin and underground knowledge of the space;
2014 – 2016: Ethereum launches and early adopters spring up;
2017 – 2018: ICO boom and an influx of capital and interest;
2018 – 2020: ‘DeFi Summer’, where projects started to build the foundations for decentralised finance;
2021: NFTs, DeFi and DAO boom interest; and
2022: who knows?
The following categories summarise the activities within the Australian Web3 ecosystem:
Communities/DAOs
These form the backbone that brings people together, and with recent events, many communities have moved online to Discord. In-person events such as Blockchain Week show that people are willing to meet in real life again. By bringing it all together, people feel a sense of community and the ecosystem grows accordingly.
DeFi is such a vast category that it can be been broken down into the following:
Layer 1 blockchains: Fantom, Algorand, ThorChain;
Finance layer: Synthetix, Ren Protocol, Maple Finance, Zeta Markets and Drift;
Infrastructure: Rocket Pool, Chainflip, Sigma Prime; and
Identity: ArcX and BronID.
Venture Capital
Over the past two years, traditional Web2 funds have been spinning off an extra allocation into the space. Airtree, for example, launched a US$50 million Web3 fund, which is a very healthy sign for the growth of this sector.
Media
The right kind of media is essential in this growing space, with click-bait schemes popping up left, right and centre. Influencers who are voicing their opinions in this space can be invaluable.
Legal/Regulatory/Government
Bodies like Blockchain Australia are helping form relationships and policies within the ecosystem. Collaboration between these associations and regulatory bodies will accelerate the adoption process.
Exchanges and Retail Investors
Retail investors use these exchange platforms to enter the Web3 markets. BTC Markets, Independent Reserves, Coinjar and Coinstop are some of the first Australian native exchanges.
Immutable X is the first Layer 2 scaling solution for non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on Ethereum. It’s a cutting edge protocol for NFTs which enables projects to build on Layer 2 Ethereum with a fantastic developer and user experience, and enables instant trading, massive scalability and zero gas fees for minting and trading, all without compromising user or asset security.
Immutable X is the most technically advanced solution for NFT scaling ever built, developed with StarkWare’s powerful STARK prover and rollup technology. Immutable believes NFT users and developers shouldn’t have to choose between the security and network effects of Ethereum, and creating a world-class experience for their users. IMX is an ERC-20 utility token built for the purposes of rewarding pro-network activities on Immutable X, such as trading, liquidity provision and building applications. The token aligns incentives between traders, creators and marketplaces so that all participants benefit from protocol activity.
As the digital surveillance capabilities of governments and corporations continue to increase, projects like Oxen are doing their part to ensure the average joe has access to strong encryption technologies. Whether it’s trading, communication, or regular web browsing, Oxen has a privacy-first product to fill the need.
The Oxen team have developed two applications that demonstrate the power of their service node network, these are Session and Lokinet.
Session is a decentralised messaging app that uses onion-routing and end-to-end encryption for secure and anonymous communication. With over 300,000 monthly active users, Session is one of the most used dapps in all of web3.
Lokinet is a high speed onion-routing protocol which provides anonymous internet access. Lokinet is compatible with all web browsers, because it can run in the background instead of needing a specialised browser or plugin — so the user experience is more similar to VPNs than Tor. Because of Lokinet’s modern protocol and network architecture, it is significantly faster and more lightweight than other onion-routers — it can even handle things like video streaming.
All Oxen apps rely on the service node network to function. Service nodes are Oxen’s specialised staked nodes which secure the proof-of-stake blockchain. Service node operators stake OXEN to secure the network and are rewarded with OXEN coins for their service.
The OXEN cryptocurrency is an instant transaction privacy coin. With complete fungibility, OXEN coins cannot be traced, nor can specific OXEN coins be blacklisted by centralised entities.
To tie the ecosystem together and to reduce service node emissions, Session and Lokinet have planned monetisation features for services on their network, though its’ planned to keep all Oxen apps free to use.
Power Ledger is an energy trading platform that allows buyers and sellers to trade energy directly with one another and without the need to go through a centralised power company.
Power Ledger offers a trustless trading platform where consumers can sell energy to their peers, allowing consumers to monetise their excess energy production and access cheaper energy by buying it directly from other users on the platform.
A permissioned based blockchain allows Powerledger to build and scale energy projects across the globe, processing 50,000+ transactions per second since shifting from Ethereum to Solana. This scalable technology is fast, transparent and secure. Powerledger’s blockchain technology facilitates secure trading and mitigates settlement risk, whilst also providing an immutable and verifiable audit trail. In 2021, Carlton United Breweries partnered with Power Ledger to power their VB Solar Exchange program, which enables participants to track and trade their excess solar energy for VB beer.
Haven is a project that aims to provide anyone, anywhere with access to true private digital assets in virtually any form they choose.
The Haven ecosystem gives you the ability to store, transact and convert your money into an asset type of your choice, all in complete privacy. It consists of 3 types of assets, which combine to give users genuine utility XHV, xUSD, and xASSETS.
Haven (XHV) acts as the network collateral, and has an elastic supply. It is volatile, so the price is set according to supply and demand on exchanges. Burning XHV is the only way to mint xUSD.
xUSD is a private stable coin which can always be converted to 1 USD worth of XHV. It’s created by burning the equivalent USD value of XHV. xUSD is the only currency that can be converted into xASSETS, so it also acts as a gateway between XHV and xASSETS. xASSETS are price-stable synthetic assets which can be minted using xUSD and stored within a Haven Vault. In the future, there is virtually no limit to the number of xASSETS that could potentially be available. Currently, users can convert and transfer Gold (xAU), Silver (xAG), Bitcoin (xBTC), as well as a range of other fiat currencies. In the near future these assets will be tradeable on Thorchain’s decentralised exchange.
Emanate unites musicians and music lovers on a fast and fair collaboration and sharing platform where they can create and earn more. Emanate is much more than just a music streaming service, it brings transparency around royalty and rights distribution, allowing collaboration to occur effortlessly via smart collaborations on Emanate’s live platform.
The music industry—especially the streaming industry—has been marred by claims from artists that they are underpaid, misled, and exploited. Emanate co–founder Jimi Frew sees streaming platforms as an extension of the legacy music industry — and wants to bring the benefits of web3 to the music industry through Emanate.
Emanate is creating a more transparent music industry which makes life simpler and fairer for everyone to create and listen to music. With a specific focus on streamlining payments and agreements between collaborators. Soon, any label will be able to create a profile and start managing their artists.
Emanate has a growing number of artists, and an ever-increasing catalogue of music to enjoy. The best part is that when you listen to music, the artist will be getting paid in real time — truly linking creators and consumers.
Emanate puts power back into the hands of its users, the artists and the consumers. The EMT token can be used to access the full power of Emanate. It’s like owning a bit of the network for yourself, like creators and consumers owning a piece of Spotify.
One of the leading non-fungible token (NFT) scaling platforms, Australian blockchain startup Immutable X, has partnered with retail game giant GameStop to create its new NFT marketplace, as well as a US$100 million fund to support innovation in the NFT space and its creators.
We’re thrilled to announce that @Immutable is taking another leap forward in the gaming & blockchain industry by partnering w/ @GameStop to power their NFT Marketplace: https://t.co/Tase31CBt3 🎮
GameStop will be using the Immutable X Layer 2 solution for its speed, zero gas fees, and 100 percent carbon neutral technology to move the company into the nascent NFT sector.
Pursuant to the February 2 announcement, the two companies will also be launching a US$100 million joint fund to empower game developers in the creation of their latest NFT projects. The fund will be used for grants to help creators of NFT content and technology. But individuals who want to build or are building an NFT game project can submit proposals here for a chance to be among the first to build on the new platform.
Co-founder of Immutable Robbie Ferguson stated that it wants to change the gaming landscape by “bringing the age of digital ownership to billions of players worldwide […] one that rewards players rather than extract value from them”. GameStop plans to be a catalyst for this by having its marketplace bring “billions of low-cost, in-game assets that can easily be bought and sold” to its 50 million+ users.
Some in the gaming space are of the opinion that the evolution of the industry will be toward players owning their in-game assets. Avid gamers will be able to monetise their time in-game and have more to show than just hundreds of hours and cosmetics that gather virtual dust. On the other side of the coin, many gamers are pushing back against integrating NFTs with games, seeing it as just another cash grab from corporates.
In correspondence with tech website VentureBeat,Ferguson stated that “the best thing to do is to create truly player-first gaming experiences that embrace the benefits, rather than the hype, of NFTs. Most importantly, the games have to be good – it’s play-and-earn, not play-to-earn.”
