The $2 million seed investment round for GAM3S.GG, previously known as Polkastarter Gaming, has been concluded. Mechanism Capital served as the round’s lead investor, while several prominent angel and venture capitalists also contributed.
The project is rebranded to reflect its new vision in conjunction with the seed round fundraising. Along with a number of angel investors in the web3 gaming industry, the full list of investors also includes Polygon, Double Peak, ArkStream Capital, LD Capital, ROK Capital, Hyperithm, Snackclub, Emurgo Ventures, Eden Ventures, MixMarvel DAO Venture, 4SV, CommonWealth Capital, Venly Ventures, TKX Capital, SkyVision Capital, Compute Ventures, and MarketAcross.
By investors and partners, the GAM3S.GG gaming superapp has been nicknamed the “IGN for web3” and will use the capital to develop and grow. With over 60,000 registered users, 200+ games listed in 15 chains, and selected web3 gaming material, the portal has established itself as the largest community for web3 gamers since its November 2022 debut.
“Web3 games are a uniquely difficult product to build, let alone the infrastructure surrounding and enabling it. This holds especially true for gaming hubs and aggregators.” said Ken, Partner at Mechanism Capital. “Finding the win will require teams to take us past the feature sets we have been stuck with for years, and the ability to understand incumbent playbooks and evolve them with aggressive experimentation. We see that here with this squad – now it’s just a matter of time for players to make their way to GAM3S.GG.” added Ken.
The year 2023 has seen additional gaming industry heavyweights explore the web3 gaming waters, with titles like Sugartown and Champions Tactics: Grimoria Chronicles from Zynga and Ubisoft, respectively. The need for an aggregator like GAM3S.GG is increasing daily as more players join the market. Additionally, the perception of web3 gaming is changing, and GAM3S.GG is developing the hub to let both natives and newcomers alike discover new territories and experiences within a single web3 gaming superapp.
“The gaming industry is at a crossroads; while web3 offers new exciting possibilities, the lack of quality content and a singular destination for all your web3 gaming needs has left many gamers lost,” said Omar Ghanem, Co-Founder & CEO at GAM3S.GG.
Since its launch, GAM3S.GG has seen thousands of registered players peruse its collection of handpicked material centered on next-generation web3 games. The platform hosted the first and biggest web3 game awards presentation, the GAM3 Awards, in December of last year. Over 250,000 votes were cast, and 140,000 different people tuned in to watch the streamed event. The platform now hopes to keep developing cutting-edge features, such as social logins, player-owned item management, progression prizes, retrospective in-game progress monitoring, as well as playing web3 games straight on the platform, to lower obstacles to entry for blockchain games.
“Traditional gaming has its IGN and Kotaku, yet the industry isn’t ready for the change that blockchain-powered titles present; and if we wait for them to step in, we’d lose potential early adopters and valuable progress — and that’s why GAM3S.GG was born,” added Ghanem. “We’re not just curating; we’re spotlighting the top games, setting the gold standard, and allowing gamers to engage with games in unprecedented ways as we aim to become the definitive home of web3 gaming.”
The team’s goal for GAM3S.GG is to facilitate web3 gaming reach 100 million users through its platform and offerings and to keep developing as the go-to resource for players interested in exploring the potential of blockchain-powered games. This will be accomplished through upcoming features that will attempt to meet all of the web3 gaming requirements under one roof.
“There’s immense value in platforms that curate and guide, particularly at early stages in new niches, and while we’ve seen plenty of platforms & aggregators rise over the years, GAM3S.GG stands out as a beacon of innovation in web3 gaming,” said Shreyansh Singh, Head of Investments at Polygon. “We’ve worked closely with the team over the past 18 months and investing in them isn’t just about backing a platform; it’s about championing a vision where web3 gaming is accessible, quality games rise above the noise, and where gamers have a trusted compass in this new frontier.”
The GAM3S.GG action is only getting started, and the industry is still young. As more well-known brands join the blockchain gaming market, the platform will act as a point of entry for all players to make use of web3 games to the fullest with all the resources they need.
