Gala Games is a gaming platform utilizing blockchain technology, founded by veterans from the gaming and blockchain industries. Unlike other platforms, Gala Games focuses on the entertainment aspect of gaming, introducing various game genres including simulation, strategy games, among others. Additionally, they collaborate with key players in the gaming industry to jointly develop gaming projects.
Introduction to Gala Games
Gala Games is a blockchain gaming development company established in 2018 with the aim of building a decentralized gaming ecosystem. It serves as both a game development platform and an aggregator, offering players the opportunity to earn digital assets through in-game achievements.
The platform operates on the Ethereum blockchain and expands its coverage by collaborating with the Polygon network and integrating with the BNB chain through the p.Network Bridge dApp. This strategic move allows players to send and trade tokens at lower gas fees. Gala Games is renowned for its native token, GALA, an ERC-20 token providing various functionalities within the ecosystem, including in-game purchases and peer-to-peer transactions. Gala Games was launched in 2019 following the success of early blockchain gaming projects like Axie Infinity, capitalizing on the growing interest of gamers in blockchain technology. The platform's unique approach of merging gaming with cryptocurrencies has attracted both crypto enthusiasts and gamers. It utilizes NFTs to prove ownership of in-game items such as swords, potions, and land, which players can trade on the open market. The value of these items is determined by supply and demand dynamics.
Founding Team of Gala Games
Gala Games is a prominent player in the blockchain gaming industry founded by Eric Schiermeyer, Michael McCarthy, and Wright Thurston in 2019. Schiermeyer serves as the CEO of Gala Games, bringing extensive experience in the digital gaming realm, notably as a co-founder of Zynga, the company behind popular games like Zynga Poker, Farmville, and Mafia Wars. His journey in the tech industry traces back to the early 2000s, starting with the creation of the globally influential social media platform Myspace.
Gala Games' President, Michael McCarthy, also boasts over two decades of experience in the gaming industry. His impressive career includes leadership roles at Interplay Entertainment and Troika Games, followed by a stint as Creative Director at Zynga. McCarthy is further recognized as a pioneer in applied cinematography.
In addition to experienced leadership, Gala Games' development team is supported by professionals who have contributed to iconic games like "Doom," "Halo," and "Call of Duty," adding substantial expertise to the company's game portfolio.
Operation of Gala Games
The Gala Games ecosystem offers a variety of blockchain games developed by both internal developers and external partners, including Ember Entertainment, Kung Fu Factory, Gamedia, Certain Affinity, and 22cans. It is launched as a platform for users who want to play and enjoy games, rather than solely relying on incentivizing measures to attract customers. Gala Network users can enjoy real-time strategy (RTS), multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA), and role-playing games (RPGs) while earning GALA cryptocurrency and NFT rewards for using the platform.
NFTs represent in-game items such as weapons, tools, and skins, which users actually own and can trade in the Gala Store (also known as the Non-Fungible Market) and one of the world's largest NFT markets, OpenSea.
Gala Games Nodes
At the core of the Gala Games experience is the Gala Node, offering a play-to-earn experience. Gala Games operates on a distributed computer network instead of relying on centralized servers. These participant-managed nodes contribute computational power to Gala Games' decentralized gaming network and receive rewards in return. Node operators play a critical role in protecting the platform from fraudulent activities, verifying transactions, creating GALA assets, and regularly receiving GALA tokens and unique NFTs.
Gala incentivizes players to run their own nodes to earn GALA cryptocurrency, limited edition NFTs, and contribute to ecosystem development. The maximum number of Gala nodes is 50,000, with the initial price of founder nodes priced at $2,000, starting to increase in a tiered pricing model after selling 19,000 nodes. Therefore, as the sale progresses, the price increases, and purchasers not only face high prices but also the issue of longer payback or profitability cycles due to the halving of founder node rewards every July 21st. Gala has already sold over 44,000 nodes, indicating success in node sales.
Gala Games Tokenomics
The maximum supply of GALA is 50 billion, with daily production before January 13th of this year, distributed as follows: half of the daily production is allocated to founder nodes, and the other half is allocated to the "Gala Games Conservatorship," serving as a community treasury to support Gala Games projects. The daily production of GALA will halve on July 21st each year. It is important to note that the GALA allocated to founder nodes daily is not directly deposited into the project's wallet but needs to be minted by nodes based on the daily allocation.
Furthermore, to address the issue of reduced motivation for founder node operators due to the halving of daily rewards in July under the current model, Gala introduced the PAY-BY-BURN burning mechanism on January 13th this year. Subsequently, when using GALA for purchases and payments on the platform (excluding nodes), the GALA used for purchases will be burned, and an equivalent amount of GALA will be distributed to founder nodes. Typically, the GALA used for purchases would likely flow to the project, whether used to support project development or sold on the secondary market. The PAY-BY-BURN mechanism effectively transfers the tokens that the project should have received to the nodes, increasing node rewards.
Expected Use Cases of Gala Games Token
The primary use of $GALA is currently to purchase founder nodes and in-game NFTs. Additionally, the official statement suggests that Gala's Project GYRI will enhance the role of GALA tokens within the ecosystem, empowering them further.
Currently, the price of founder nodes on the official website is around 5 million GALA, equivalent to approximately $100,000 at current market prices. After purchasing a node license, users can run a founder node on a personal computer or virtual private server without staking any tokens. The maximum number of founder nodes issued is 50,000, and once purchased, they are permanent and cannot be resold on the secondary market. The active nodes currently number around 44,000. Purchasing founder nodes with GALA is similar to mining, as the node is a proof-of-stake (POS) node. Half of the daily GALA production is distributed to founder nodes, and rewards for the day can be obtained by running the node for at least six hours daily, based on Gala's official scoring system. The longer the runtime, the more rewards one can receive. In addition to the daily GALA production, founder nodes also receive game tokens and randomly allocated game NFTs as rewards. On July 21st each year, daily GALA production will halve.
Gala Games Ecosystem
Gala is an open platform that goes beyond gaming; it expands into Gala Film and Gala Music. The future Gala ecosystem will be integrated into Gala's own Project GYRI blockchain. Additionally, Gala has collaborated with Unity to create the Gala metaverse VOXverse. Below are some of the most popular games in Gala's primary gaming sectors.
Town Star
Town Star is a farm simulation game developed by the Gala team, also serving as Gala Games' inaugural game. The gameplay seamlessly inherits the legacy of Zynga's hit series, FarmVille. Players engage in crop planting, factory construction, and balancing consumption with economy management. They earn profits by climbing the game leaderboard. Additionally, players can purchase NFTs to accelerate production within the farm, similar to recharge mechanisms.
Spider Tanks
Spider Tanks is a PC-based PVP competitive game where players need to purchase NFT game equipment. They engage in team-based PVP battles on game maps to earn resources. Developed by a Dutch game studio named Gamedia, Spider Tanks is the first game launched under the GYRI project.
Mirandus
Mirandus is a fantasy role-playing RPG game offering players complete control and freedom. Players have absolute autonomy to venture into the wilderness, confront monsters in forests and dungeons, join a kingdom, serve as knights in their courts, or establish shops in one of the five great cities. The core mechanic revolves around players' ownership of in-game assets. Although the game has not yet been launched, player anticipation is high.
GRIT
GRIT, launched on the Epic platform on June 6, 2022, is the first Web3 game to go live on traditional gaming platforms. It features a battle royale mechanism similar to PUBG, set in the wild west. With superior game design and high-quality details, players can purchase firearms and weapons in the NFT market.
Gala Music and Gala Film
Gala has brought movies and music onto the blockchain, signing contracts with many artists such as The Rock for Gala Film and Snoop Dogg for Gala Music. Players can purchase movie or music album NFTs and earn rewards while watching movies or listening to music - "Watch to earn" or "Listen to earn."
VOXverse
In June of last year, Gala Games collaborated with Unity Technologies to develop the 3D metaverse project "VOXverse." It integrates all high-quality projects from the Gala ecosystem, including games, music, and movies, centered around the NFT-related digital avatar series called "VOX Collectible Series." Every player in the game will have a VOX collector's edition avatar, which they will use as their virtual appearance.
Conclusion
Gala Games stands out from other blockchain gaming platforms by focusing more on the games themselves rather than just blockchain technology. It aims to enable blockchain games to achieve or even surpass the playability of traditional games. Compared to current play-to-earn dominated blockchain games, this further enhances players' immersion in games, making them willing to spend more time experiencing the fun of gaming and exploring the world of the metaverse. However, the longer development cycle of high-quality games may lead to delays in the launch of games within the platform.
Furthermore, judging from the five games currently showcased on the Gala platform, its game library is extensive. The network node ecosystem, an important component of the GALA ecosystem, continues to increase user stickiness. If more game developers can be attracted to joining the platform and engage in multi-party cooperation, Gala's vision of becoming a vision in the blockchain gaming field akin to Steam remains promising.
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