Yesterday games company Zynga announced a strategic partnership with Forte, which develops blockchain solutions for game publishers. The aim is to use Zynga’s intellectual property for blockchain games.
Zynga’s first claim to fame was Farmville, the massively popular game originally launched on Facebook in 2009. Nowadays, it mainly does mobile games. Japanese game firm GJIT developed the play-to-earn game Farmers World, attempting to capture similar success in web3. To date, the game has logged $168 million in NFT trades, according to CryptoSlam.
Last month Forte raised an eye-popping $725 million series B funding round that included Animoca Brands, Warner Music and Tiger Global. Several blockchain protocol firms also participated, such as Cosmos, Polygon and Solana. So far, Forte has agreements with 40 game developers.
“Our goal is to bring a new level of quality and fun into Web3 and blockchain games, while also providing a safe and trusted ecosystem that will keep our valued players and communities entertained for years to come,” said Matt Wolf, VP of Blockchain Gaming at Zynga.
While games may be the largest entertainment sector – more than film and music combined – the transition from web2 to web3 may not be smooth. On the one hand, play-to-earn games such as Axie Infinity have brought in masses of revenues – the game is responsible for $3.7 billion in NFT sales, although most of that is re-sales.
However, when Ubisoft recently started using NFTs in a mainstream game, it received a rather chilly reception. And games publications continue to slam NFTs. Concerns range from a belief that NFTs are nothing but a scam to people playing to make money instead of having fun.
Meanwhile, Zynga’s stock market capitalization stands at just over $7 billion, about half of the figure in March this year. That’s partly because of concerns over Apple’s new ad tracking policy. However, it also faces competition from the likes of the hugely popular Roblox game.
