Fenix Games has announced that they’ve raised $150 million to create a new kind of publisher for blockchain gaming.
The idea is to create a publisher and platform company that plays a key role in bringing blockchain games to market. Fenix Games plans to acquire, invest and publish both existing games and blockchain games of the future.
The investors include Phoenix Group and Cypher Capital. The new company suggests that blockchain gaming — which has had a kind of Cambrian explosion in the last couple of years — is heading toward a consolidation where big companies are going to emerge by acquiring or funding all strong startups. In other words, Fenix Games hopes to be in a good position to roll up a lot of companies together into a single strong company with a big portfolio — one that can survive the current doldrums in blockchain games.
“You can think of us as like a VC fund,” said Chris Ko, CEO and co-founder of Fenix Games, in an interview with GamesBeat. “The market is similar to earlier [mobile gaming at the rise of free-to-play games] but it hasn’t found its Clash of Clans for blockchain games yet. We’re using the VC arm to fund the next generation of games. We’re actually going to start off with a huge base of capital to invest in those studios. We’re also looking to use our balance sheet to acquire a bunch of existing games in the Web2 space to build a portfolio. And that will be the right base for our portfolio.”
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Fenix Games will focus on the marriage of game market economies and live operations to provide publishing services to all game models – premium, free to play, and blockchain gaming across all platforms.
“I see a huge gap right now with various developers experimenting with game infrastructure, middleware, and more. There isn’t anyone really filling the publisher role and trying to figure out how you go to market successfully,” Ko said. “By taking a publishing approach, we abstract ourselves from the technologies. We play Switzerland when it comes to technology and we mitigate risks.”
In addition to raising its own funds, Fenix Games will have access to allies among investors with a lot more capital — in the hundreds of millions of dollars — as well.
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