Play-to-earn games in Asia continue to attract considerable interest from investors.
Summoners Arena, a GameFi role-playing game (RPG) developed in Vietnam, closed a $3 million funding round led by Pantera Capital and counted Coinbase Ventures and Impossible Ventures as participants.
In an interview, Zoe Hoang, Summoners Arena chief marketing officer, said that the team is hoping to differentiate Summoners Arena from other entries in the genre by making it a game that people actually want to play, not just play-to-earn, she said, calling their model Play-Own-Earn.
The team plans to use proceeds of the raise to expand their headcount, and further develop the game by enhancing the graphics and adding support for VR. They also plan to create a universe of other games with the same characters.
Hoang said that gaming is the “perfect use case” for NFTs because it can create a sense of ownership for gamers. When playing a game, gamers might ‘invest’ dozens of hours of time but before GameFi there’s no way to claim ownership over this achievement.
Interest in gaming in Vietnam has accelerated during the coronavirus pandemic, with gamers primarily using their mobiles or PCs. Consoles are pretty much non-existent in the market because of their high cost and limited utility compared to a phone or computer.
Using NFTs to represent ownership of this achievement — and not just speculation — is what caught the attention of Pantera Capital, said Hoang.
“By prioritizing building an amazing game first and layering in crypto-economics second, their play-own-earn model is setting a strong example for other projects in the space, learning lessons from early attempts at the play-to-earn model,” said Paul Veradittakit, Partner at Pantera Capital, in a press release.
Although play-to-earn games are on shaky regulatory grounds in parts of Asia, Hoang said that the Vietnamese government hasn’t taken a position on crypto and existing laws have’t caught up with the technology. That being said, the government is meeting with stakeholders and has an open ear to their feedback on developing new laws.
GameFi tokens currently have a $23 billion market cap, according to CoinGecko.