‘Game Studios’ have seen the bright side of blockchain games and want to get on board. A recent announcement in the crypto world, “the former Zynga employee Eric Schiermeyer is entering blockchain gaming with the Gala Network.”

This is no surprise as crypto games show huge potential. And traditional game studios want a piece of it.We all want to own a game character or assets, especially when we spend hours playing with them!

Eric Schiermeyer’s Gala network is replicating a similar concept/ business model followed by Enjin & Silica Nexus, Although in addition to a blockchain-based gaming network, they also own a part of sandbox gaming studios.

In the past Schiermeyer has built startups around such interesting concepts although some have not worked out.

Gala Network

Gala network is a new addition in the blockchain space, an underdog amongst the established projects in the space. Enjin (ENJ), Matic, Tron (TRX), Ethereum (ETH), Silica Nexus to name a few.

Gala has a lot to catch up with regards to its technology, network, user base, tokenomics & more.
Their goal is to enable games to use cryptocurrency and blockchain features like trading, minting, mining of fungible & Non Fungible assets.

The first game out of this new venture is Town star. It’s similar to Farmville with additional features like NFT’s, mining and a marketplace.

“It’s going to be a revolutionary experience for people, unlike any other experience I’ve ever seen, when you spend money here, you actually get something, something that you can keep, and maybe even give away or give some to somebody else. You can’t do that in traditional free-to-play games right now. And people just accept that. I think that once people realize that you don’t have to accept that situation, and you can actually own your own items, then people aren’t going to play those other games anymore.”- Schiermeyer, Interview with Venture beat.

Town star is out in Beta & only available to play on a desktop via a browser.

Town Star Gameplay

Grow crops, harvest them, sell them, and use the profits to upgrade your farm and buildings. Your earnings in the game can be used to buy buildings and other consumables.

The assets which are built, bought or created can be traded with each other directly in the marketplace. Assets in the game are of different types (corn, cotton)All the items in the game have a limited quantity based on how many are produced and consumed by players. Players can sell these for crypto.Although there is no announcement of the token yet. At the moment purchases can be made via USD or equivalent Bitcoin.

Eventually, you’ll be running a self-sufficient town that makes profit by producing and trading assets resources and consumablesThe game also has 1,000 farm bots which can mine tokens, like a miner software. Each mining robot is priced 15 BTC ($1,06,833), This robot can mine coins in the game.

You can also assemble the bot by buying parts in stages, although you will only get returns after the build is complete.This is probably the most overvalued crypto-asset!An investment of 15 BTC ($1,06,833) elsewhere will get you way more returns.

Earnings
Producing and trading is one way to earn tokens, whereas owning a bot is another.

The currency in the game is going to be tokenized (Box Coin), and will have a stable price. Tokens will be traded at this predetermined price.

The 15 BTC FarmBot & parts required for assembly

Competition

For those who are interested in a Crypto based farming simulation game.You should also try out CropBytes, a Tron(TRX) based game.

Cropbytes is a popular game in the crypto space, It has over 10k users.The game is available on IOS, Android & Web.

Unlike most blockchain games CropBytes is focused on fun-to- play factor, with the added benefit of regular crypto earnings. It features assets like animals, buildings, crops, etc, which are owned by the players and can be traded.

CropBytes has an open economy, a liquid marketplace where the price is decided by the players, An exchange like trading interface and more.It is free to play, although players who invest make higher returns.

They have crossed the 10k user threshold with a 2D app, They have recently announced their upcoming 3D version with a teaser. The 3D version looks great, but will it be enough to bring in mass adoption?

Even though it’s too early to compare, we can look at the current status of both the games and see where they are heading. it’s interesting to see how these games are going to compete with each other.

The future of Blockchain gaming looks exciting! We are going to see many more major game studios emerging into this market. Its exciting to see how it unfolds!