A traditional gaming startup is trying to bring Web 3 games to the front lines of crypto skepticism - the Apple App Store.
The company announced Friday that Ready Games has raised $3 million through the sale of its new AURA token to develop a Web 3 mobile gaming space.
The capital raise was led by BITKRAFT and Hashed and included participation from Tribe, IOSG, Spartan, Mapleblock Capital and Polygon.
Ready Games' Web 3 division will focus on "motivating Web 2 game programmers to explore and transition to Web 3, while distributing games 'as usual' through traditional app stores," according to a press release.
Founded in 2016, the company believes it has the expertise to solve the mobile GameFi adoption challenge, drawing on existing relationships between long-standing old-world game makers and new-world gamer guilds.
"In a way, we've opened up the opportunity for thousands of game studios to be like a test network," Ready Games CEO David Bennahum said in an interview with CoinDesk. "Through Read,y they can very quickly, in less than 30 days, get an existing Android or Apple game on the chain."
VCs' big bet on Web 3 gaming
The capital raise is reminiscent of C2X's $25 million token sale announced in March, which was also backed by Hashed and had a specific focus on launching GameFi for mobile devices.
This new way of raising capital is accompanied by hundreds of millions of dollars that have flowed into the blockchain gaming industry from various funds over the past year, with the Terra and Solana ecosystems being the main targets for investor cash flow.
Even with funding secured, the industry still has some major obstacles to overcome on its way to mainstream success. Many crypto game providers have stayed away from participating in the App Store because Apple retains a 15% to 30% share of all in-app purchases, which would also apply to NFTs and in-game digital assets.
Add to that the stigma crypto opponents have against integrating NFTs into games, which was evident in Ubsoft's first foray into the technology last December.
Bennahaum, like many in the industry, sees the adoption of blockchain in mobile gaming as inevitable rather than a gamble.
"You really have to educate people on best practices, that's how we solve these problems," Bennahaum said. "How do developers end up owning the blockchain part of their game? I'm just saying that the Ubisoft thing is really a separate problem. That's the trap of being trendy with something and not really fully thinking through the long-term value."