Matr1x, the first-ever mobile shooting game in the Web3 industry, has successfully raised $10 million and is about to close a new round of financing. Past investors include Hana Financial Investments, a subsidiary of Hana Financial Group and a key financial holding company in South Korea; HashKey Capital, well respected for its early investments in Ether (ETH); Amber Group, one of the most important market makers in the Web3 industry; and SevenX, an elite Web3 fund investing heavily in the GameFi sector.
The investment in Matr1x marks the first step of the South Korean giant into the Web3 industry. “It is rare to see this kind of traditional financial giant in this sector,” an industry analyst commented, declining to disclose their identity, “but Hana’s smart move could be more linked to its metaverse strategy, and I expect more to follow suit, as metaverse has to be open-sourced and decentralized, while GameFi could well pave the way to the ultimate metaverse.”
Matr1x will develop three mobile games with a unified worldview, Matr1x Fire, Matr1x War and Matr1x Evolution, with Matr1x Fire being a competitive first-person shooter (FPS) game, covering successive stories about Cyber Earth, Mars Immigration and Interstellar Expedition, according to its official website. Matr1x Fire opened pre-registration on Sept. 15, 2022, and recorded close to 28,000 users in less than 96 hours, according to the same website. “It seems they are trying to make their own stories stand out as a new IP, rather than just exporting games, which is very smart if you look at the Microsoft bid of $68.7 billion on Activision Blizzard and the rumored potential bid for Ubisoft. People are betting on IPs rather than just games,” said the industry analyst.
Shooter games were the top game genres across the globe in 2021, according to J. Clement, a research lead with a focus on internet and gaming of Statistica. Shooter games ranked as the most-played gaming genre for virtually all age groups except for online users aged 55–64 years, where it ranked third.
While there are already plenty of game offerings with shooter features in the Web3 industry, competitive FPS is definitely the crown jewel of the whole shooter game genre. Industry leader CS:GO had a monthly active player count between 31 and 37 million in 2021 and made over $400 million in revenue in 2018, according to sources.
CS:GO only supports PC and consoles, while mobile FPS could reach far more players, as it is much easier for people, especially in developing countries, to access mobile phones. High entry barriers are set for the development of mobile FPS games, as shooting feedback remains the most difficult issue, and capable developers across the world can be counted on one hand, while the team behind Matr1x is one of them, according to people familiar with the matter. “This is an exciting moment as a top mobile gaming studio ultimately steps in, and they will prove the Web3 industry could have high-quality non-financial applications, and Web3 is not just about financial speculation. They will launch their games very soon as their products are pretty mature, which is why so many big names are standing with them, including even global IP Giant Darkhorse. Moreover, they are developing high-quality mobile games, with the potential of reaching most people in the world, while most players in the sector are still developing PC games. Mobile or not, to be or not to be, that is the question.”
GameFi’s current business model is to perceive mint revenues and transaction fees from the secondary trading of nonfungible tokens (NFTs). While a crypto exchange’s transaction fee is just south of dozens of basis points, an NFT marketplace’s take rate could vary between 2% and 6%, which makes it very lucrative, and explains well why Meta is also interested in the business and announced its support recently for Coinbase Wallet. IOSG, a Web3 fund, also called in its latest newsletter Game NFT marketplace as the easiest piece of cake to cut from OpenSea, the current largest NFT marketplace valued at more than $13 billion. IOSG further elaborated that the new Game NFT marketplace could emerge from a blockbuster GameFi project.
Matr1x games are powered by Polygon, a layer-2 scaling solution or sidechain that was created to provide faster, lower-cost transactions. Polygon runs as a parallel blockchain alongside the main Ethereum blockchain. “As far as I know, Matr1x provides the best-ever gaming products in the Web3 sector and could potentially shed some light on how Web3 could beat Web2. I personally hope they could eventually lead us through the uncharted water and the whole Web3 industry will stand behind them. Let us wait and see,” concludes the industry analyst.
To learn more about this project please visit Matr1x games website: http://www.matr1x.io