Farmville Creator Raises $33M Funding to Develop Blockchain Games
In Brief
Proof of Play, a game studio founded by Epic Games, Zynga, EA, Activision, and Google, has raised $33 million in a seed round.
The studio will use the funds to develop blockchain games for autonomous worlds.
Proof of Play, a game studio founded by leaders from Epic Games, Zynga, EA, Activision, and Google, today announced it raised $33 million in a seed round.
The round was co-led by Chris Dixon at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and Neil Mehta at Greenoaks. Naval Ravikant, Balaji Srinivasan, the founders of Twitch, Anchorage Digital, Mercury, Firebase, Zynga and Alchemy also joined the round.
The studio says it will use the funds to develop blockchain games for autonomous worlds. In addition, former Twitch CEO and Co-founder, Emmett Shear, has joined Proof of Play as a board member.
Proof of Play is led by CEO Amitt Mahajan, who co-created FarmVille and founded the early NFT marketplace Rare Bits. The company emphasizes that its team boasts decades of collective experience in both gaming and blockchain.
“As one of the creators and lead developer of FarmVille, the #1 Facebook game played by over 300 million people, I saw first-hand what the amount of energy and storytelling players put into games they love,” Amitt Mahajan, Co-Founder and CEO of Proof of Play, said in a statement. “When the game shut down in 2020, over a billion hours of playtime, creativity and investment was lost. Realizing this, I felt compelled to find a better way to make games timeless.”
Accessible Gameplay Without NFTs
In contrast to blockchain games that require the purchase of in-game NFTs for participation, Proof of Play says its goal is to immerse players in enjoyable gameplay without the need for prior blockchain expertise or the acquisition of NFTs.
“We are built on Arbitrum Nova. Nova has fast execution times and cheap gas. It’s perfect for a game like ours that runs all game logic through onchain transactions,” Mahajan told Metaverse Post. “That means that all of the game rules, characters, items, and validation exist within smart contracts that run on an Ethereum-compatible blockchain. Because we have built our games this way, we have no centralized servers. Onchain games run forever and can be enhanced by the community.”
Along with the funding announcement, Proof of Play also unveiled the release of its first free-to-play invite-only title, Pirate Nation. The company describes it as a social role-playing game (RPG) where players build their ships, recruit crew, battle enemies and vie for the top position on the leaderboards.
The company says the game has shipped weekly updates, including card-based combat, island building and community-led world boss raids since its beta release in December.
With its blockchain-based infrastructure, Pirate Nation aims to become a game that does not rely on creator intervention or external servers to continue operating. According to Proof of Play, players will also have the ability to remix the game — by adding or removing content.
“Autonomous worlds are the natural progression of games where anyone can create anything. By creating tools and foundation for people to be able to craft digital universes that persist forever and can be remixed, it creates the conditions for an exponential explosion of creativity,” Mahajan explained. “Every world that’s created becomes a building block for the one that comes after it. Creators can fork each other’s work to rapidly create new creations.”
In future, Proof of Play plans to open-source its technology framework to enable other creators to easily create on-chain games and applications.
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About The Author
Cindy is a journalist at Metaverse Post, covering topics related to web3, NFT, metaverse and AI, with a focus on interviews with Web3 industry players. She has spoken to over 30 C-level execs and counting, bringing their valuable insights to readers. Originally from Singapore, Cindy is now based in Tbilisi, Georgia. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Communications & Media Studies from the University of South Australia and has a decade of experience in journalism and writing. Get in touch with her via cindy@mpost.io with press pitches, announcements and interview opportunities.
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Cindy is a journalist at Metaverse Post, covering topics related to web3, NFT, metaverse and AI, with a focus on interviews with Web3 industry players. She has spoken to over 30 C-level execs and counting, bringing their valuable insights to readers. Originally from Singapore, Cindy is now based in Tbilisi, Georgia. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Communications & Media Studies from the University of South Australia and has a decade of experience in journalism and writing. Get in touch with her via cindy@mpost.io with press pitches, announcements and interview opportunities.
