‘Pixels’ Creators Plot More Crypto Games—Maybe on Telegram Too

Pixels has been one of many hottest crypto video games all yr, with its late 2023 migration to Ethereum gaming community Ronin and February’s token launch propelling the social farming recreation in entrance of hundreds of thousands of gamers. And now the builders are exploring different video games in the identical universe.

In a current interview across the Pixels Chapter 2 gameplay launch, founder Luke Barwikowski shared with Decrypt’s GG that the studio is engaged on different video games within the Pixels universe, and that it’s teaming up with exterior builders to discover these franchise expansions.

Barwikowski stated that his inner crew, which numbers about 19 full-time staff, is setting the high-level path for these Pixels universe video games after which handing them off to exterior studios to develop. He added that his crew will then add blockchain components and person acquisition components earlier than launching them to the general public.

“There’s some enjoyable stuff coming,” he teased. And which will embody a Telegram-based recreation, too.

“We’re taking a look at perhaps kicking off one other one on Telegram,” he stated. “That is perhaps some alpha—however that is like a facet experiment. Telegram’s an attention-grabbing ecosystem… we would dip our toes there.”

Telegram’s crypto gaming ecosystem has seen explosive demand in current months, after the tap-to-earn recreation Notcoin attracted 35 million gamers this spring—after which launched the most important gaming token to date this yr by way of The Open Network.

Hamster Kombat has since pulled a massively bigger viewers, purportedly over 200 million gamers, even garnering a lot consideration that Iran officials were concerned it will distract residents from voting in final week’s presidential election. Different rising Telegram video games embody Yescoin, Catizen, TapSwap, and PixelTap.

Whether or not or not the potential Telegram riff on Pixels turns into a actuality, Barwikowski stated he’s eager on increasing out the IP they’ve developed. Now that Pixels has a large participant base and a bigger in-house crew, they’re presently creating an in-house lore bible that can assist set the stage for different apps and experiments forward.

“That is going to construct the bottom for a few of these different experiments that we’re operating round IP enlargement,” he defined. “We’re engaged on a number of cell apps proper now, and that is going to be the following line of distribution that we’re engaged on. We will strive some cool stuff with incentivized downloads—like, form of play-to-earn on iOS and Android.”

Together with IP enlargement, the current Chapter 2 overhaul to Pixels is designed to not solely present {that a} play-to-earn crypto game mannequin can work and be sustainable in 2024, but additionally that Pixels may be the studio main that cost.

“We need to be the play-to-earn firm, and this feeds into that,” Barwikowski affirmed.

Edited by Ryan Ozawa.