Quick take:
- Funding will be used to launch initial games built on Joyride.
- Joyride features a multi-chain token wallet, cross-chain NFT minting and more.
- Solitaire Blitz and Tennis Champs are the initial games launching on Joyride.
Web3 game creator platform, Joyride, has announced today that it has secured $14 million in seed and follow-on financing. Key investors in the platform include Web3 and gaming investment platform BITKRAFT Ventures and Web3 venture studio SuperLayer.
Participants in the funding include Coinbase Ventures, Animoca Brands, Dapper Labs, Modern Times Group (MTG), Solana Ventures, Mirana Ventures, and other strategic blockchain investors.
The funds will support the launch of initial games built on Joyride, continued improvements to its developer platform and the launch of NFTs and Joyride’s native $JRX token for its games.
Over the past decade, Joyride has powered top-grossing mobile games with more than 300 million players.
The platform provides analytics, marketing, and live operation capabilities to scale mobile games with player-owned assets and economies. It also features a multi-chain token wallet, cross-chain minting and management of NFTs, and tuned fungible token economies for casual games.
Joyride is currently focused on optimising the platform for Unity creators as the engine powers about 50% of all mobile games, the company told NFTgators in an email.
“By helping these developers with a comprehensive platform providing the blockchain, publishing, and developer tools they need to build great Web3 games, we believe we can have the greatest immediate impact on bringing high-quality casual games to market with our partners,” said Joyride founder and CEO, Omar Siddiqui.
While some metagame capabilities such as leaderboards, tournaments, and similar in-game features are currently limited to Unity developers, the publishing and blockchain features of Joyride are already available to non-Unity creators. The platform expects to offer more comprehensive support to developers on other game engines over the course of 2022.
The first games launching on Joyride are Solitaire Blitz, a blockchain-powered, mobile esports game, and Tennis Champs, an NFT-based play-to-earn game featuring multiplayer tennis gameplay.
According to a report by DappRadar and Blockchain Games Association, blockchain gaming startups collectively raised $1 billion from venture capital firms in January while blockchain gaming activity accounted for 52% of the developer apps activity that month.
Siddiqui commented that early projects like Axie Infinity have already identified the potential of blockchain games by giving players real ownership in the games where they spend so much of their time and passion. He expects to see a new approach to the creation of blockchain games this year.
“Over the course of this year, we are going to see a new set of blockchain games launch that already know there is a market for what they are building. As such, these titles will be deeper, more thoughtful, and more systematic in building their game mechanics and worlds with the capabilities of blockchain gaming in mind,” said Siddiqui. “With Joyride, we aim to make it even easier for creative game developers to develop these novel concepts to unlock the full potential of this new approach.”
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