Ethereum’s popularity makes it a great choice for anyone building an NFT project, including game developers. However, its inefficiencies can also be seen as a red flag, and it’s for this reason that Layer 2 (L2) scaling solutions like Immutable X exists. The platform has been used in five blockchain games so far, and now the company behind it is looking to get more game developers on board.
In order to accelerate developer adoption of the platform, the Australia-based Immutable recently launched a $500 million fund, composed of its IMX tokens and cash in partnership with several venture capital firms. With this capital, Immutable practically intends to invest in and provide grants to projects that are being built on Immutable X.
Prior to this, Immutable had already worked with GameStop on providing a $100 million token grant fund for blockchain game developers, and it has been confirmed by Immutable’s representative to Decrypt that this newly announced fund is a separate endeavor.
So far, Immutable X is already being used for developing games like Gods Unchained, Guild of Guardians, Illuvium, Ember Sword, and Planet Quest. The first two are titles developed by Immutable’s internal game studio, while Illuvium recently conducted a very successful NFT land sale, to which Immutable X contributed substantially.
We’re launching the @Immutable Developer & Venture Fund worth $500M to accelerate the adoption of Web3 games & projects.
Learn more ➡️ https://t.co/iUs5uYQsIq
Continue the thread below. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/u5rPPsApAt
— Immutable | $IMX ⓧ (@Immutable) June 17, 2022
Similar to many other scaling solutions, Immutable X is designed to allow faster, cheaper, and more energy-efficient transactions than Ethereum’s own mainnet can handle. Technically, Immutable X works by conducting transactions on a separate chain. It then uses StarkWare’s StarkEx rollup technology to bundle the transactions, before finally committing them to the Ethereum blockchain. In practice, this makes Immutable X ideal for applications that involve a large number of transactions, like crypto-powered games for example.
With the new fund, Immutable is planning to deploy investments and grants over four years, with an average expected investment of $100,000 to $500,000 in tokens and cash. Investment-wise, Immutable is promising developers access to opportunities from companies like Animoca Brands, Bitkraft, and GameStop, while grant winners will receive monetary support and access to exclusive resources from industry experts.
The company noted that in building Gods Unchained and Guild of Guardians, it has hired professionals from leading game studios like Riot Games, who will provide applicants with extensive necessary knowledge on tokenomics, game design, and marketing to launch their games on Immutable X.
Immutable isn’t limiting this opportunity to specific regions, meaning that Indonesian game developers who are interested can also pitch their projects. More info regarding the program can be found on Immutable’s website.
