Author: Zen, PANews
Recently, a number of news about the multimedia gaming ecosystem CROSS THE AGES (CTA) have attracted widespread attention from the community. In addition to completing $3.5 million in equity financing, bringing the total financing to $15 million, and the native token CTA being launched on multiple trading platforms such as Bybit, KuCoin, GATE, and MEXC, CTA also conducted an exclusive IDO on the Web3 gaming platform Elixir Games in advance, which was quickly sold out once it was launched.
In addition to the fact that CROSS THE AGES is attractive enough, the community that Elixir Games has cultivated for many years and the complete ecosystem that it is building 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 cooperate with it?
Supported by Solana Foundation and Square Enix, raising $14 million
Founded in 2020, Elixir Games now has over 150 games and a user base of over 1 million. In March of this year, Elixir announced the completion of its seed round of financing, raising a total of US$14 million. The round was extended for more than a year after it was first announced in December 2022 that Square Enix and Sino Global Capital led the investment, and subsequently received investments from other institutions such as the Solana Foundation and Shima Capital. Elixir Games has also established a strategic partnership with Japanese gaming giant Square Enix, committed to making a significant impact on the awareness and adoption of Web3 games among traditional game players.
During the seed funding, Elixir also announced a partnership with GameStop, one of the world’s largest game retailers, to support GameStop Playr, the latter’s Web3 game distribution platform. Elixir Games will manage GameStop Playr’s infrastructure, overseeing a wide range of features including Web3 game launchers, game hosting, tournament management, game discovery pages, and social features.
Create a one-stop Web3 game platform integrating financing, development and distribution
In 2021, when 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 the door to all blockchain games. Since then, in order to fill the gap in the Web3 game distribution platform, many projects have begun to compete to make Web3 versions of Steam, intending to take the lead in occupying this blue ocean on the eve of large-scale application.
Elixir was also keen to compete with Steam at first. However, with the development of the blockchain game 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 game launcher section of the traditional game platform, 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 IDO event of Cross The Ages (CTA), which Elixir launched for the first time recently, is considered a successful attempt before the full launch of the ecosystem.
In Elixir’s 2024 roadmap, the release of the $ELIX token will be the beginning of a process to securely simplify the Web3 user experience through a gaming platform, marketplace, and launchpad. Following the $ELIX token, the Elixir Launchpad will be launched later this year.
Acquisition of LITT and launch of ELIX, Elixir’s unique “dual token” model
At the end of last year, Elixir Games acquired LitLab Games and its Web3 auto chess game CyberTitans. The game has been 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 independently developed by Elixir, and No Way Back, a cartoon-style ninja battle royale game.
In addition, in the pre-IDO event of Elixir Games' upcoming native token ELIX, players who pledge a certain number of LITT tokens will eventually receive a subscription amount at a ratio of 1:1. The event is designed with 5 subscription levels, namely plankton (5,000), shrimp (25,000), dolphin (50,000), shark (150,000) and whale (600,000). As of May 16, the price of LITT tokens was about $0.01, a drop of about 35% in the past week.
As for the native token ELIX, its use cases will be even richer, including guaranteeing holders’ participation in premium games listed on Launchpad, providing incubation for selected companies; providing mining plans with different APY benefits based on the user’s level; obtaining exclusive airdrop rights for Elixir platform games; voting rights for the incubation or release of new games; obtaining access to exclusive features and activities in the social metaverse; obtaining advanced features on the Elixir gaming platform; obtaining Elixir’s season pass, etc.
In addition, in order to promote the development of the ecosystem of the Elixir gaming platform and provide more incentives and opportunities to participants, 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 destroy $ELIX tokens, while other operations such as early cancellation of deposits in dApps, participation in new game releases, etc. will also lead to the destruction of $ELIX tokens. This destruction mechanism helps stabilize the supply of tokens, thereby increasing the value of tokens.
However, the information disclosed about ELIX is still relatively limited, and its token economic system, issuance time, etc. are still unknown.
What games are available on Elixir?
Last month, Elixir Games launched the Season Pass event. During the event from April 19 to June 3, players will accumulate trophies by participating in the platform and participating in the game and completing daily tasks. In the end, the first 200,000 players will receive a total of $550,000 in prizes. Currently participating games include CyberTitans, 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, and its product portfolio covers multiple blockchains such as Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, Avalanche, BNB and Sui. It also actively cooperates with other game platforms. For example, it introduced Gala Games ' flagship games Town Star and Spider Tanks last year. Other popular games such as BigTime, BR1: Infinite, Kiraverse, etc. are also launched on the platform. From the perspective of player activity, the popular games in the Elixir ecosystem are currently basically concentrated in the Season Pass event list. Combining activity and game quality, PANews selected 5 of them and briefly introduces them in the following section.
CyberTitans
An auto chess strategy game in which each player forms his own team of Titans in a game with 8 online players and chooses his own strategy 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 the quick game, 8 online players will complete the duel within 20 minutes, and the top three will receive rewards; in the tournament mode, 8 players will face off against each other and advance to the next round in turn until they reach the final and decide the final winner. It is worth mentioning that the game will launch a Web2 version on the Play Store and iOS, and it is also listed on Steam (status is coming soon) and has been launched 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 form a team of heroes and build the best skill deck in the game, and get rewards by winning battles and trading all in-game assets with other players. The game offers two modes: PvE and PvP. In the PvE scenario, you need to form a team of heroes to fight against powerful monsters; the PvP arena allows players to fight against each other, testing 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 treasure chests on the market. As of May 16, the price of GFAL was about $0.017, 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 favorable rating of 74%.
Castle of Blackwater
A social reasoning game with a similar game mechanic to the classic Werewolf. Players discover each other's hidden characters through communication and perception. By analyzing the behavior of different players, players can slowly find more evidence to infer and verify the true identity of other players. Finally, the team completes the task of their own forces to win. The game is divided into three forces: the Protector, Satan, and the Forgotten. The winning conditions are to select the Satan player, eliminate the Protector player, and complete the personal task. Although it is a free game, the competitive version of Castle of Blackwater is only open to NFT character holders, while all players can participate in the casual version. The full PC version of the game is scheduled to be launched at the end of this year. It has also been listed on Steam and is expected to be launched simultaneously. In addition, its mobile application is scheduled to be launched early next year.
Mokens League
A fast-paced 1vs1 soccer game where players control a team of 5 NFTs, each with unique statistics 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 to enhance its in-game utility and market value. For PC users, Elixir is the primary way to launch the game; for mobile users, the game is available for download on the Google Play Store and iOS App Store.
TINIES
Elixir is a fast-paced fighting game released in the third quarter of last year. It adopts a play & earn game mechanism, and players can participate without owning digital assets. Its game mechanism is simple and easy to use, which inevitably reminds people of the classic game "Tank Wars" developed by Japan's Namco Games in 1985 and released on the Nintendo FC platform. However, this game has richer gameplay, allowing players to practice PvE skills and upgrade monsters in the elite league of the PvP arena.
