Quick take:
- Gaming startup Branch has completed a $12.5 million funding round to build a P2E game.
- The seed round was backed by Mechanism Play, Dragonfly, Polychain and Coinbase Ventures, among others.
- The startup is building a play-to-earn game that blends the Minecraft concept with Animal Crossing and Runescape.
Gaming startup Branch has announced the successful completion of a $12.5 million funding round backed by Mechanism Play, Dragonfly, Polychain and Coinbase Ventures, among others.
Three Arrows Capital and Polygon Studios CEO Ryan Wyatt also participated in the seed round. Branch co-founder Dayton Mills likens the game to a collage of “Animal Crossing [with] Minecraft [and] a bit of Runescape.”
It draws its gameplay mechanisms from the popular online gaming titles to create a unique NFT-based free-to-play gaming experience.
Describing the mechanics of the game to CoinDesk, Mills said: “I can’t think of anything similar in the play-to-earn space because most play-to-earn games require you to buy an NFT upfront to play them.”
“But in our world, it’s very much designed so that you may not ever even know what an NFT is,” he added.
The game is based on Islands that players can own by buying NFTs. each island has different types of virtual assets. Players will be able to use the assets to build useful structures within the game.
The play-to-earn mechanism also involves players renting portions of land for raw materials or selling crafted items as non-fungible tokens in the secondary markets.
Mills is betting on the game’s unique ecosystem to attract different types of investors, including those with experience investing in leading P2E games like Axie Infinity, as well as, corporations and celebrities looking to invest in virtual real estate.
As a result, the game has the potential to attract investors from all over the world, creating a well-diversified ecosystem.
Branch has also chosen to keep traditional crypto out of its gaming ecosystem, only allowing players to earn and make purchases using NFTs.
The company plans to launch the game this summer, in the hope of avoiding the scourge that has ravaged popular play-to-earn games amid their links to crypto. Play-to-earn games lost more than $1.1 billion during the first quarter of 2022, according to a report published by DappRadar.
Stay up to date:
