A closer look at Elixir Games: A one-stop Web3 gaming platform powered by Solana and Square Enix

Author: Zen, PANews

Recently, CROSS THE AGES (CTA), a multimedia gaming ecosystem, has attracted widespread attention from the community. In addition to completing a $3.5 million equity financing, the total financing amount reached $15 million. The native token CTA was launched on multiple trading platforms such as Bybit, KuCoin, GATE, and MEXC. Furthermore, CTA conducted an exclusive IDO on the Web3 gaming platform Elixir Games in advance, and it quickly sold out upon launch.

In addition to the attractiveness of CROSS THE AGES in its own right, Elixir Games’ long-year community and the finished ecosystem being built are also the reasons why IDO has received strong attention and support. So, what is Elixir Games, what is it doing, and why did CTA choose to partner with it?

Supported by Solana Foundation and Square Enix, raised $14 million in funding.

Elixir Games was founded in 2020 and now has over 150 games and over 1 million users. In March of this year, Elixir announced the completion of a seed round of financing, raising a total of $14 million. This round was extended for more than a year after the Square Enix and Sino Global Capital led the investment in December 2022, and subsequently received investments from other institutions such as the Solana Foundation and Shima Capital. Elixir Games has also established a strategic partnership with the Japanese game giant Square Enix, aiming to significantly impact the awareness and adoption of Web3 games among traditional gamers.

During the seed funding period, Elixir also announced a partnership with GameStop, one of the world’s largest game retailers, to provide support for GameStop Playr, the latter’s Web3 game distribution platform. Elixir Games will manage the infrastructure of GameStop Playr and oversee a wide range of features, including Web3 game launcher, game hosting, tournament management, game discovery page, and social features.

Create a one-stop Web3 game platform that integrates financing, development and issuance

In 2021, as blockchain games represented by Axie Infinity began to attract widespread attention as a new model, the largest traditional game distribution platform, Steam, explicitly banned the use of cryptocurrencies or NFTs, closing its doors to all blockchain games. Since then, in order to fill the gap in Web3 game distribution platforms, many projects have started to compete to create Web3 versions of Steam, aiming to be the first to occupy this blue ocean on the eve of mass adoption.

Elixir was initially enthusiastic about benchmarking against Steam. However, with the development of the blockchain gaming industry and nearly four years of exploration in the market, Elixir has now positioned itself as a one-stop gaming platform that “changes the way blockchain games are financed, developed and brought to market,” rather than just a platform with many Web3 games. In addition to the traditional game platform game launcher section, the Elixir ecosystem also plans to launch Launchpad and incubation programs. The Elixir Launchpad ecosystem incubates new Web3 games in the form of IGO (Initial Game Offering), aiming to provide a seamless experience for both players and developers. The recent IDO activity of Cross The Ages (CTA) launched by Elixir for the first time can be considered a successful attempt before the complete launch of the ecosystem.

In Elixir’s roadmap for 2024, the release of $ELIX Token will be the beginning of a secure simplification of the Web3 user experience through gaming platforms, marketplaces, and launchpads. Following $ELIX Token, Elixir Launchpad will launch later this year.

Acquisition of LITT and launch of ELIX, Elixir’s special “dual Token” model

Last year, Elixir Games acquired LitLab Games and its Web3 auto chess game Cyber Titans. The game was the most popular game on the Elixir Games platform last year, and its LITT token was launched in May 2023. Thanks to the acquisition by Elixir Games, the utility of the LITT token has expanded from a single game token to the Elixir Games ecosystem. In March of this year, the LITT token was integrated into Tinies, a fast-paced casual fighting game developed independently by Elixir, and No Way Back, a cartoon-style ninja battle royale game.

In addition, in Elixir Games’ upcoming pre-IDO event of the native Token ELIX, players who stake a certain amount of LITT Token will eventually receive a 1:1 subscription amount. There are 5 subscription levels, namely Plankton (5 k), Shrimp (25,000), Dolphin (50,000), Shark (150,000) and Whale (600,000). As of May 16, the LITT Token price was about $0.01, a fall of about 35% in the past week.

As for the native Token ELIX, its use cases will be more abundant, including guaranteeing holders to participate in premium games listed on Launchpad, providing incubation for selected companies; Mining plans that provide different APY rights and interests according to the user’s level; Get exclusive Airdrop access to Elixir platform games; Voting rights on the incubation or release of new games; gain access to exclusive features and events in the social Metaverse short; Get premium features on the Elixir gaming platform; Get Elixir’s Season Pass and more.

In addition, in order to promote the ecosystem development of the Elixir gaming platform and provide participants with more incentives and opportunities. The ELIX token also introduces a continuous burning mechanism to establish a deflationary economic system. Specifically, 0.5% of each platform transaction will be directly used to burn $ELIX tokens, and other operations such as early cancellation of deposits in dApps and participation in new game issuances will also result in the burning of $ELIX tokens. This burning mechanism helps stabilize the token’s supply and increase its value.

However, at present, the information disclosed about ELIX is still relatively limited, and its Token economic system and issuance time are not yet known.

What games are available on Elixir?

Last month, Elixir Games launched the Season Pass event. During the event from April 19th to June 3rd, players will accumulate trophies by participating in games and completing daily tasks on the platform. In the end, the top 200,000 players will share a prize pool of $550,000. Currently, the games participating in this event include Cyber​​Titans, Chronos Worlds, Elemental Raiders, Mokens League, Safrootics, Castle of Blackwater, Katana Inu, Last Resort, Obots, One Tap, No Way Back, Tinies, Unioverse, and Tatitiko.

However, the games that can participate in this event are only a small part of the Elixir platform. The platform currently has about 150 games, with a product portfolio covering multiple blockchains such as Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, Avalanche, BNB, and Sui. It is also actively cooperating with other game platforms, such as introducing Gala Games’ flagship game Town Star and Spider Tanks last year. Other popular games such as BigTime, BR1: Infinite, and Kiraverse are also available on this platform. In terms of player activity, the highly popular games in the Elixir ecosystem are currently mostly concentrated in the Season Pass activity list. Based on activity and game quality, PANews has selected 5 of them, which will be briefly introduced in the following section.

Cyber Titans

A strategy game of autobattler genre, in which each of the 8 online players forms their own team of Titans and chooses their strategies to be the last player standing on the battlefield. The arena/battlefield consists of 64 squares, divided into 8 rows and 8 columns. CyberTitans has two main game modes: Quick Game and Tournament. In Quick Game, the match between 8 online players will be completed within 20 minutes, and the top three players will be rewarded. In Tournament mode, the 8 players compete against each other, advancing to the next round one by one, until reaching the finals and determining the ultimate winner. It is worth mentioning that the game will be released as a Web2 version on Play Store and iOS, and it is also listed on Steam (coming soon) and already available on Epic.

Elemental Raiders

A free turn-based hero battle game that combines the features of a collectible card game and an RPG game. Players need to assemble a team of heroes in the game and create the best skill deck to win battles and trade game assets with other players for rewards. The game offers two modes: PvE and PvP. In PvE scenarios, players need to build hero teams to fight against powerful monsters; PvP arenas allow players to compete against each other, testing their strategic skills to the maximum. The game token GFAL has been launched and can be used to purchase in-game items such as elemental crystals and chests on the market. As of May 16th, the price of GFAL is approximately $0.017, with a drop of about 26% in the past week. It is worth mentioning that the Web2 version of the game has been launched on Steam with a positive rating of 74%.

Castle of Blackwater

A social deduction game with similar gameplay mechanics to the classic game Werewolf. Players communicate and perceive each other to discover hidden roles. By analyzing the behavior of different players, players can gradually find more evidence to deduce and verify the true identities of other players. The ultimate goal is to complete the team’s mission through cooperation to win the game. The game consists of three factions: Protectors, Satan, and the Forgotten. The winning conditions are selecting the Satan player, eliminating the Protector player, and completing personal tasks. Although the game is free, the competitive version of Castle of Blackwater is only open to NFT role holders, while the casual version is open to all players. The full version of the PC game is planned to be released at the end of this year and is already listed on Steam. It is expected to be released simultaneously. In addition, the mobile version of the game is planned to be released in early next year.

Mokens League

A fast-paced 1vs1 soccer game in which the player controls a team of 5 NFT, each NFT with unique stats and abilities. These NFTs can be integrated into teams, traded, and sold on the Mokens League marketplace. Each NFT is randomly generated and can be upgraded, enhancing its in-game utility and market value. For PC users, Elixir is the main way to launch the game; For mobile users, the game is available for download on the Google Play Store and iOSApp Store.

TINIES

Elixir’s fast-paced fighting game, released in the third quarter of last year, features a play & earn gameplay mechanic that allows players to participate without owning digital assets. The mechanics are simple and easy to learn, reminiscent of the classic Tank Wars, developed by Namco Games in Japan in 1985 and released on the Nintendo FC platform. However, the gameplay is even more varied, allowing players to practice PvE skills, upgrade monsters, and more in an elite league in the PvP arena.