👋 Another one bites the dust

Welcome to Wednesday — and another edition of The Drop. Just a couple more days till the weekend. You got this!

Today we’re doing a mini post-mortem of blockchain gaming studio Battlebound, as well as a look at the broader funding trends in crypto gaming. Plus, there’s Soneium news, MapleStory chatter, a surprise Wildcard airdrop, and more.

— Kate Irwin

P.S. Let me know how you’re liking The Drop! Send me an email at [email protected].

Battlebound goes bye-bye

Another blockchain gaming studio is shutting down — Battlebound is closing its doors.

The studio was overseeing two games including metaverse game Evaverse and an in-development RPG dubbed Anterris.

Battlebound previously raised $4.8 million in seed funding back in 2022 from investors including a16z and Dapper Labs, and it gained another $3 million by selling NFTs. 

The company had the budget for what’s often called an “AA game,” or two indie games, but did not have the runway for more ambitious projects (“AAA” games can have budgets of over $100 million each). 

“Despite the recent traction, we've been building for four years with a lean, scrappy team, extending our runway as far as possible while trying to secure our next funding round,” Battlebound wrote in a post announcing its closure. 

“We excelled at doing more with less and staying afloat while developing above our weight. Ultimately, we're in the same position as many studios before us, closing our doors due to remarkably challenging market dynamics,” the post continued.

On LinkedIn, Battlebound CEO and founder Adam Hensel said: “Thousands of players participated in our final playtest, and watching them enjoy years of hard work makes everything worth it.”

Hensel had previously worked at League of Legends publisher Riot Games for four years, most recently as a senior technical artist. 

It really sucks to see yet another ambitious game studio unable to raise funds to continue a project. Other blockchain-powered or crypto-optional games like Dauntless and Eternal Dragons have also been cancelled in the past year. Blockchain game tracker BigBlockchainGameList found that 60 crypto games were discontinued in Q1 last year, but admits that tracking this can be “imprecise and [a] lagging indicator.” 

Midnight Society, the studio behind the ambitious yet ultimately unreleased NFT-optional shooter Deadrop, announced its shutdown in January after severing ties with its co-founder following public controversy and struggling to raise further funds.

Metaverse games aren’t really my thing, but Anterris looked like it was shaping up to be a cozy fantasy RPG. 

New blockchain game announcements decreased 36% last year compared to 2023, according to research from crypto gaming group and research firm Game7. That means things are slowing down, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing for crypto gaming.

I’d take a handful of quality games from dedicated teams than a wide array of shovelware any day of the week.

Game7 also found that only 45% of crypto games are in a playable state, meaning the majority of known blockchain games are still in development. 

Aaaaaaand now we wait.

Correction: Removed mention of EVA token. Battlebound clarified there is no EVA token and any existing ones are fake.

Sony, Line to launch games as mini-apps

Soneium is working with the messaging app Line to release four “mini-apps” through its network later this year. Sony’s Web3 plans are being led by Sony Block Solutions Labs. 

The first four mini-apps will be Sleepagotchi Lite, Farm Frens, Puffy Match and Pocket Mob, launching in the “coming months” (we don’t have exact dates yet).

Sleepagotchi Lite is a mini version of the planned iOS/Android mobile game Sleepagotchi Sleep Rewards. It gamifies sleep habits, rewarding users for maintaining healthy rest schedules with digital collectibles and tokens that will eventually carry over to the main app.

Farm Frens, a farming simulation game already available on Telegram, will similarly integrate Soneium as it expands to the Line app for a more stable and enhanced experience.

Puffy Match is a game from AI-powered gaming platform Moonveil. Artwork suggests it may be a casual puzzle or arcade-style claw game, where players attempt to grab plush animal rewards or match similar items. The gameplay mechanics are unclear on this one, but we’ll see soon enough.

Rounding out the list is Pocket Mob, which takes on a social strategy RPG format in a cute, anime aesthetic. This game will allow players to collect and interact with various characters and engage in strategic battles, directly within the Line app. It comes from Sonzai Labs, which also created the Telemafia game, available through Telegram.

If I had to choose, I’d probably try out Farm Frens and Puffy Match. Both sound good for solo players, and I’m a big fan of games like Animal Crossing. 

MapleStory N launch rumors swirling

MapleStory’s Web3 version doesn’t have a confirmed release date yet, but it should be launching “soon,” according to the game’s Chief Brand Officer Dominic Jang and Head of Strategy Keith Kim.

They confirmed this in an X Space on Tuesday. I don’t think they’re trolling.

MapleStory, Nexon’s long-running 2D MMORPG, debuted more than two decades ago as a side-scrolling adventure. An upcoming blockchain-based version is part of the MapleStory Universe, alongside the user-generated content sandbox MapleStory N Worlds and the developer toolkit MapleStory N SDK.

“We have been inspired by Kaito in a lot of aspects,” Kim said. He also shared that they previously switched from Polygon to Avalanche because their priorities were different, and Avalanche seemed like a better option in the long term. 

I’m really curious to see how this game does when they launch. The original MapleStory was released way back in 2003 and is a well-known brand in the gaming world for its pixelated, 2D platformer aesthetic and monster-hunting missions. 

I think it has strong potential to translate over to Web3 because the main game has both a cash shop and an auction house, to name a few of its fleshed-out financial elements. It may be a viable blockchain game competitor to Pixels, a pixelated MMORPG that’s been doing well on Ronin.

That said, MapleStory 2, the sequel to the main game, did so poorly that the game’s global servers were shut down in 2020, less than two years after its worldwide launch in 2018. 

It’s possible a Web3 MapleStory could undergo a similar flop — or continue to get updates like the mobile game version, MapleStory M. The mobile version launched in 2016 and has over five million downloads on Google Play. It’s still holding up OK nine years later.

If I disappear once MapleStory N comes out, don’t worry — just find me on Maple Island.

• Wildcard, the upcoming card-based battle arena video game, has released the latest version of its Wildpaper (white paper) and has airdropped some WC tokens to early supporters. The team has promised that its token will be 100% community owned, as opposed to VCs or the devs holding allocations.

• My Pet Hooligan, the NFT-optional battle royale with edgy bunny characters, is coming to the Xbox Store soon, according to a post from the team. For PC players, it’s already available in early access on the Epic Games Store.