The 2020 Year In Review of the Blockchain Game Alliance
The Year of Continuous Disruption
Executive Summary
“At the Blockchain Gaming Alliance (BGA) we recognized many of our members were not just surviving but some were actually thriving in 2020. This 2020 annual report looks into the critical issues uncovered throughout this disruptive year.”
Sebastien Borget, President of BGA
Despite the challenges, the BGA rose to the occasion through activating platforms for connection building and networking. With its growing membership, the coming year will be about bridging more gaps within the vast gaming industry.
For Sébastien Borget, the new president of BGA since March, he is hopeful that members felt how the organization is a platform to build meaningful connections that will strengthen the industry. “I’ve focused on making [the] Blockchain Game Alliance a more proactive organization that different people coming from varying backgrounds like gaming, art, media, law, and developers could connect and network,” he shares.
A total of 34 events led by 176 speakers were streamed across different platforms which totaled 15,236 views. A clear indication that BGA’s commitment to raising public awareness and understanding of blockchain technology is being successfully rolled out amid the challenging time the world is in.
With a total of 128 new members this year, this brings the total number of new members to 169. Further breaking it down, 117 company members, 6 gold sponsors, 6 silver sponsors, and 40 individual members brings the total to 169 BGA members.
Knowledge Sharing in a Disruptive Era
“The BGA constantly shares insights and information allowing any blockchain enterprise the ability to adapt and accelerate in this unique environment.”
Sebastien Borget, President of BGA
As 2020 closes, unprecedented challenges have forced various companies and institutions to abruptly adapt and pivot strategies that would allow them to survive the global health crisis and economic recessions. Despite these obstacles, the Blockchain Game Alliance has been at the forefront of creating social and structural disruptions in the gaming industry. Through Borget’s leadership, BGA was able to expand player possibilities and break barriers to play through balancing and aligning the best interests of players, creators, and game developers in mind.
With the support of industry luminaries, Ubisoft, AMD, and MakerDAO, BGA was able to activate events that have created discourse, raised awareness, and positively disrupted the growing gaming industry.
From May 19 to 20, BGA members were given the opportunity to get free tickets to the ANON Summit, the largest online blockchain conference in the CET timezone. The organization also spearheaded a roundtable discussion about NFTs Design and Best Practices. Some of the speakers at the events are Devin Finzer from OpenSea, Andreas Petersson from Capacity Blockchain Solutions, Juergen Hoebarth from Tokenization Limited, and Sebastien Borget from The Sandbox and BGA.
A Live Interview was conducted with Englebardt, who shared his perspective on how blockchain will disrupt the future of gaming and the value of Investing in the Gaming Future last June 13. “What we’re really trying to do here is to imagine as people increasingly spend more and more of their time immersed in their digital devices that it becomes so integral in their lives,” says Englebardt, Managing Partner at Galaxy Interactive.
A Live Interview with Frédéric Chesnais was streamed where he talked about gaming and tokens last June 24. He shared how he got into video games and his strategies to grow Atari in the entertainment industry and how blockchain will impact the future of gaming. Moreover, he talked about wallet and blockchain apps building solutions, Arkane Network, and virtual gaming platforms like The Sandbox Game. He also shared his insights on his company’s expansion and explained why Atari has been experiencing an impressive business trajectory.
DeFi x Gaming — Fireside Chat with Aleksander from Axie Infinity and Gustav from MakerDAO last July 2 tackled topics like the possibility of seeing NFTs as collateral in DAI and MakerDAO supporting L2.
On July 3, Property Rights for Virtual Assets: The Next Digital Revolution Will Start Inside Games with Co-founder and Chairman of Animoca Brands, Yat Siu was conducted. He shared his experiences in becoming a game programmer and his origin story at Atari Germany back in 1990. Animoca Brands is best known for its strategic leveraging of popular brands, AI, blockchain, gamification, and mobile technology from, but not limited to, game to fitness applications.
BGA led a panel of experts on modeling token economies within the Ethereum DeFi ecosystem last July 29, moderated by Marguerite deCourcelle, and the speakers were Editor of DeFi Rate, Cooper Turley, CEO of Roll, Bradley Miles, and MetaCartel Core member, Alex Masmej. The discussion covered a wide scope of topics like opportunities to build-in incentivization and utility and benefits of tokenization to support a resilient economy.
A live talk was streamed last August 20 to discuss the various types of in-game investments in blockchain games titled In-Game Investments: Virtual Land and Estates, Collectibles, Trading Cards, Wearable, What Next? Speakers from the blockchain games and investment industry took part in the event like Mick Morucci, Jeffrey Zirlin, Richard Rivera, and Borget.
On September 2, the AMA talk series kicked off with Ask Me Anything with Adam MacDonald — Dissolution Game. An Ethereum Blockchain FPS MMORPG with an in-game cryptocurrency is dubbed as a living game with every action having an equivalent effect in the whole gameplay.
Notable players in the industry such as Gauthier Zuppinger of Nonfungible.com, Alex Atallah of OpenSea, and David Moore of Blockrocket.tech took part in the discussion on cryptocurrency in an event titled The Secondary Market Secret Recipe. The primary target was to identify the reliable news to follow, proven strategies in investing in crypto both from a buyer and seller point of view, and facilitating the best time to put an offer or retrieve it. Further, NFT assets are gamified to create a barrier against negative actors that threaten the economy of the game.
“What we have is a full decentralized game in which you have a heavy amount of processing, you have billions, even trillions of microprocessing going on during the game. It can preserve the same decentralization and security of the underlying blockchain network,” shares Erick de Moura, Founder, and CEO of Cartesi.
Female Disruptors
“The fastest-growing sector within our industry is the number of females leading emerging enterprises and great teams. The BGA highlighted these industry disruptors on several occasions in 2020.”
Sebastien Borget, President of BGA
In pursuit of empowerment and gender equity, the first part of How to be Successful in Blockchain Gaming-Women Series last June 4 was held to showcase the possibility of better industry acceleration by inclusive entrepreneurship and true ownership. Its focus was on Blockchain Gaming, NFTs, and Digital Art — a space that was usually dominated by men.
“It is exciting to see women-driven creations. To see what could happen to the space, especially what could happen here with women-driven campaigns for artists and creators to show up,” shares Holly Atkinson, a Blockchain Developer, is an experienced Full Stack Engineer for Tracr for Forbes Blockchain 50, in the first installment of the Women Series.
Key personalities led the event like Carolin Wend of Mintbase, a firm believer that decentralization will elevate the world into a better place and serve as a bridge between people and technology. The platform allows NFT creation on Ethereum blockchain. Then Cynthia Huang CEO and Co-founder of Altcoin Fantasy and Co-founder of Airhosts Forum, her victories in 8 hackathons totaling to $100,000 make her a force to be reckoned with.
Holly Atkinson’s unmatched trove of experience spans from business development, project finance, and complex acquisition and joint venture transactions greatly contributed to the event’s discussion. Additionally, Marguerite de Courcelle, CEO, and Co-founder of Blockade Games, takes pride in their blending blockchain with interactive entertainment. Finally, Dapper Labs’ Head of Marketing & Partnership Caty Tedman, the lead for curating content from the notable brands to consumers — her innovative approach to blockchain technology offered a fresh perspective on the technology.
The second part of the Women Series titled Creativity in Blockchain Gaming was held on June 11, where industry forces came together to share their knowledge and insights on the topic. Luna Javier, Creative Director and Co-founder of Altitude Games, CEO of Blockade Games, Marguerite deCourcelle, Co-founder of dada.art, Judy Mam, and Co-founder, Creative Technologist, and Designer of Ethernal, Jiashan Wu, all took part in the event.
The third installment of the Women Series was held on June 18 in an event titled Market Expansion: Why do we need more women in the Blockchain Industry? The discussion was led by UK’s Top 100 BAME by Financial Times, Genevieve Leville, CADAF’s Fanny Lakoubay, blackboxdotart’s Sparrow, MoCDA, and Blockchain advisor, Chloe Diamond, and Simona Pop. The discussion was moderated by NFT London and MoCDA’s Serena Tabacchi. One of the most pivotal statements in the event was from Sparrow where she concludes with, “Make the community as welcoming in whatever you can. So people will feel like they can belong in the [industry]. By doing that we will not just get more women, but more men and minorities, all the people we need.”
While on June 25, the fourth installment of the Women Series titled The Challenges with Testing Blockchain Products and dApps was participated by Founder and Director of MoCDA, Serena Tabacchi, Co-founder of CyptoMibs, Tanya “Jasper” Lindsay, Artist of Decadent.io, Olive Allen, and Co-founder of Knabu, Gabrielle Patrick. With the rise of decentralized applications, the adoption of the testing frameworks and test networks is key to ensure overcoming risks and challenges in their expansion in the global market.
The fifth part of the Women Series, Collectibles in Gaming: What do we consider of value in the digital space? last July 9 was participated by MoCDA + NFT London’s Serena Tabacchi, NFT entrepreneur and visual artist Olive Allen, ArtProject Decentralized’s Jessica Angel, The Sandbox’s Aminata Cisse, and DapperLabs’ Daniela Diaz.
“Being a woman and a person of color, having a pathway to success is critical [to have] in your business model. If you have that, and you get people to work with you. Investors are easy to find,” advises Padwe Gibson last July 16. It was another installment of the Women Series, an event titled Investing in Blockchain Games Today: Are you investment ready? was attended by speakers Gibson, Anna Tutova, Karen Content, and Tanya Lindsay. The discussion analyzed the turning point of innovation and growth amid the crisis especially as the industry is expected to be valued by more than $100 billion. It underscored the undeniable value of a non-fungible and semi-fungible ecosystem in leveraging economic growth. They analyzed the importance of being investment ready to close the gender disparity within the blockchain and tech industry.
Disrupting the World with NFTs
“NFTs are continually changing and adapting, so it was important to educate BGA members on the various NFT uses to date.”
Sebastien Borget, President of BGA
To shed more light on ways to collect and navigate the primary and secondary market in the crypto space, an event titled Collecting like a Whale: The Art of Collecting in the Crypto Space was held last August 13. The speakers included Matty (DCL Blogger), Benoit, Jim McNelis, and Whale Shark.
On August 27, a panel discussion took place that tackled an art collector’s selection process and acquisition of an art piece. Moreover, art collectors Judy Mam, Kate Vass, Anne Spalter, and Matthew (Cent) shared their individual motivation in collecting art. “I’m just now falling into a rabbit hole of art, but I can see myself bidding more than buying it now,” explains Matty (DCL Blogger)
On September 10, a talk on Collecting NFT for Investment or Sentiment Value where Zack Yanger, Joe Chiappetta, Beatriz Helena Ramos, and Barthazian discussed their motivations and rationale in collecting gaming assets and art. For a plethora of reasons, a needed evolution in the selection and minting process proved pivotal to understanding the decline of assets available in the market.
As discussions continued on September 17 on Art of Collecting NFTs, a panel discussion on NFT’s Presale Strategies and Results Feedback that included Content Manager Arielle Brechisci of WAX.io, Blockchain Product Manager Sean Dudley for Animoca Brands, and Sorare ambassador and blockchain gamer Mark Sharman. The exchange provided clarity on the market approach of major Blockchain gaming companies and their presale methods and the overall results from launch until the secondary market. Moreover, understanding how a novelty consumer habit has evolved into a sustainable business model at present.
From September 22 to 26, members were invited to Cutting-Edge Games Conference that was attended by 1,500 people from more than 50 countries. Its inception was brought about by the desire to bring together gamers and industry professionals to discuss technologies and games.
The Role of NFTs marketplace in Curation, Distribution, and Governance of Crypto assets last September 24 tackled an overarching question: Who are the primary users in the market? The accelerating spread of interest across different industries to participate in the crypto marketplace was discussed by Alexander Salnikov of Rarible, John Crain of SuperRare, and Alex Atallah of OpenSea. As the market valuation steadily rises, they share their insights on how they manage their communities and future plans for the non-fungible token economy.
At the start of October, an event titled Game NFT Makers: How to Get Started with speakers Steve Wand from Game Credits and Digitable, Craig Russo from Polyient, Tim Dierckxsens from Arkane, and Alex Russman from Enjin. They all shared how they started and either choose to work with a game NFT making platform or starting one.
An installment to The Art of Collecting NFTs, an event last October 8 titled How to diversify, protect, and develop your NFT investment in collaboration with Outlier Ventures’ Jamie Burke, Gamma Law’s David B. Hoppe, and MakerDAO’s Jennifer Senhaji. The panel tackled the numerous opportunities and challenges to the NFT economy in the acceleration of Decentralized Financed ecosystem.
Another new offering to its membership is the NFT rental and mortgage (EIP-615) Working Group facilitated by Kojshi Shiba and companies like Blockade Games Yield Gaming Guild and Delphi Digital.
As Alex Russman says, “I think what we’re going to see next is exponential…all these different projects have built bridges onto an agnostic and decentralized database onto the virtual world and digital spaces,” in one of the NFT-related events last October.
Disruptors in Action — BGA Demo Days
“One of the primary tasks of the BGA is to showcase our members and their ground-breaking creations.”
Sebastien Borget, President of BGA
The first part of a two-day live presentation, BGA Game Demo Day, was held last November 4, where the most innovative projects in the Blockchain industry were showcased. The presenters for this day were GamerHash, Spielworks, Waterdeep, Blockpegnio, CryptoMibs, Somnium Space, Cryptio, Phantasma Chain, Gala Games, Wavelings Axana Games Inc., Enjin, and Xaya.
BGA’s commitment is to ensure its members are able to show their capabilities to other members and potentially create potentially beneficial business connections. “It’s going to be a pleasure to see the progress of the members since [they’ve] joined. We are looking forward to [continuing] promoting your [games] through BGA” says Borget.
The second installment of the BGA Game Demo Day was held last November 11 where companies were given the opportunity to feature their projects that are disrupting the industry. The presenters were Bright Star Studios, Game Credits, Upland, Dark Country, Community Gaming, VIBEHub, Animoca Brands, Second Legion, Arkane Network, The Sandbox Game, Turner Sports, Reality Gaming Group, MakerDAO and Chromia, Chromaway.
“We were excited when we launched this idea…it turned out we had to spread it across two days due to the number of participants,” Borget expresses his gratitude for the massive amount of support Demo Days have received.
As more members join the BGA, its mission to create an ecosystem where it becomes an undeniable force to be reckoned with across the industry will be possible through fostering opportunities and engagements for collaborations and knowledge sharing. Moreover, the world is at its inflection point, this year changed everything from social, economic, and institutional structures yet as BGA continues to find ways to promote strong communities around games, more companies are joining the mission to disrupt the industry — together.
As an evolving organization with eyes set on the future, its commitment to engage its members and scale its value will continue to 2021.
Demystifying the Blockchain in Disruptive Times
“As a new industry sector, we feel it is important to raise awareness and educate the public about the power of the blockchain.”
Sebastien Borget, President of BGA
With the astounding growth of industry revenue, 2020 showed promise that despite the unprecedented nature of the year, the industry is on a steady expansion and growth. In 2019 alone, the industry’s revenue was at $120.1 billion a 4% increase from the previous year. However, as financial analysts expected that the impact of COVID-19 will stunt the industry’s rise, instead it has accelerated revenue growth. According to Newzoo, leading market insights and analytics firm for the e-sports and gaming industry, the initial $159.3 billion financial projections for 2020, the new market forecast is expected to jump to $174.9 billion, a clear signal that the continuous advent of emerging technologies will only innovate the gaming industry, and never slow it down.
While for the B2B research and consultancy firm, MarketsandMarkets, the blockchain gaming industry is expected to grow to $3 billion and will scale up to $39.7 billion by 2025. An indication that continuous driving force to invest and innovate the blockchain gaming industry leads to global market expansion.
According to DappRadar, a provider of industry-leading data, the number of daily active unique wallets for the month of October rose to 26,912. A 6% increase from September’s statistics and a 33% increase compared to May. This was a pivotal recovery point for the gaming activity on Ethereum which is now up by 100% compared to the previous months. Further, August was only at 23,100 daily active unique wallets, an impressive trend despite the volatility of the market.
A deep dive into the numbers, BGA has advanced public understanding as experts on the blockchain and game industry through aspirational efforts of activating 34 events from April to November and garnering 15, 236 views. These indicators not only show the rise of BGA but a promise of increased social and economic value across the industry. The core activities are divided into four main thrusts of networking, research & reporting, representing blockchain game companies, and advocating for blockchain in the game industry.
The Decentralized Gaming Working Group conducted by Edward Thomson from the Web3 Foundation and BGA member companies like Xaya, Planetarium, Cartesi, and Ethernal World was held last May 7. The discussion emphasized the difference from monolithic architectures to decentralized game architectures — as the event highlighted decentralized gaming advantages and other various architectures. To fully appreciate the beauty of this architecture, the second half included live demos from different teams.
Committed to their mission of increasing public understanding of the advantages and architecture of blockchain technology, a webinar on Blockchain games last May 15 was led by Sheppard Mullin, a leading US-based law firm on the area of blockchain games and collectibles. They shed light on the legal parameters surrounding issues on security laws, gambling patents, money laundering, smart contract developer liability, and user-generated content like decentralized virtual worlds. Jim Gatto from Sheppard Mullin shared his insights on the security compliance issues and legal requirements to further increase clarity on the deep space hounding this facet of blockchain technology.
Last May 28, the first BGA-DAO online conference tagged DAOs: An introduction for the Game Industry conducted by industry experts from the DAO industry like DAOStack, MetaClan, StakerDao, Colony, and attorney Gabriel Shapiro and Aragon shared their knowledge on insights to better understand the various types of DAOs, how they could be activated n the game industry, and its legitimacy and risk considering actual-world legal systems.
From June 23 to 25, the 16th Edition of Gamelab was held to create a platform for the most influential games industry leaders to engage in meaningful conversations. BGA members were invited to submit proposals for topics they could discuss in the digital conference that is usually attended by 1,000 people and 500 companies and organizations.
2020 Disruption Reference Points
“Many BGA members, as well as the media, will find some valuable background information and industry insights from the various 2020 presentations hosted by the BGA.”
Sebastien Borget, President of BGA
As a coalition of over 160 game and blockchain companies, they have shown a united front in fulfilling their mission to increase public understanding and highlight new ways to create, publish, play, and build strong communities through blockchain technologies. It has become a forum for individuals and companies to share new knowledge, to create better standards, to establish best practices, and to network. Undeniably, blockchain technology is at the frontlines of industry disruption and BGA is leading the charge!
The initial touch base of these events was last April 30, the New Member Meetup had 12 speakers where they announced new company members that joined the organization like Horizon Games, WAX, Somnium Space, Arctic Seascape, Dark Country, Upland, Sky Mavis/Axie Infinity, NFT London, Status, dFuse, and the Web3 Foundation.
The meetup presented new engagement opportunities to members to generate possible business opportunities to expand the adoption of the emerging technology in the growing space. The live stream was viewed 1,088 times across the globe. At the end of the meet up, a viewer asked how other industries can be brought into the NFT space. Serena Tabacchi, CEO and Co-Founder of MoCDA explains, “Incentivize learning those technology and tools, it is a learning process and it has to start somewhere and obviously, [because] the learning industry is huge,” acknowledging that the learning curve for other industries could be steep but it is possible.
Similarly, on May 28, the New Members Virtual Presentation that featured topnotch games and services companies. The presenters were: Matias Nisenson, CEO of Experimental; Robby Yung, CEO of Animoca Brands; Jiashan Wu, CEO of Ethernal World; Cynthia Huang, CEO of Altcoin Fantasy; David Johansson, CEO of Arctic Seascape; Adrian Krio, Co-founder of Spielworks GmbH; Dimitri Nikolaros, Co-founder and CTO of Bountyblok; Tanya ‘Jasper’ Lindsay, Co-founder of CryptoMibs; Alexandre Casassovici, CEO of Azarus, Inc.; and Edgar Fernandez, Co-founder of EOS Costa Rica. The engagement was a platform for members to network and forge new business partnerships while fostering knowledge sharing.
The New Member Meetup was held on June 30 where new company members joined the organization specifically OpenSea, MetalPay, Algorand, Cryptio, Metamask, Funfair Technologies, Phantasma Chain, Merfolk Games, Nice1 Foundation and MetalPay.
“As we all know we have seen a surge of users playing games but also paying for games [due to COVID-19]…there are many new platforms that you can pay cash for games. So it would be really interesting to see how we would probably do it in the rest of the world soon,” says Matias Nisenson, CEO of Experimental, in the last New Members’ Meetup last June.
Then on August 4, a New Member Presentation to foster an environment of business collaboration and growth featured CMO and Head of Growth of NOD Games, Co-founder of Galaxy Interactive, Sam Englebardt, Game and System Designer of Dapper Labs, Alan Carr, CEO of Atari, Frederic Chesnais, Editor-at-large of BlockchainGamer.biz and Steel Media, Jon Jordan, Co-founder of Infura, Michael Wuehler, CEO of Salad Technologies, Bob Miles, CEO of FirstBlood, Joe Zhuo, and COO of DappRadar, Patrick Barile.
The fifth New Members Presentation showcased new and old members’ companies’ capabilities, vision, and business opportunities last August 28. Presentations from Lead Developer Riccardo Sibani of Chromaway, Waterdeep’s owner Joshua Heilman, CEO Kyle Lu of Dapp.com, CEO and Co-founder Nicolas Julia of Sorare, Co-founder Alexander Salnikov of Rarible, Director Robert Allen of Dacoco GmbH, CMO Steve Wand of GameCredits, and Head of Blockchain Gaming Ezekiel Ng of Altcoin Buzz.
More companies joined the organization and featured their games and services. Representatives from the new members showcased their companies last September 30, namely Simplex Co-founder and CEO Nimrod Lehavi, Play to Earn Founder, Robert Hoogendoorn, Partavate Studios Founder, Scott “Koda” Dudley, CryptoStache CEO, Shea Newkirk, Bitski CEO, Donnie Dinch, Near Protocol Head of Business Development, Aliaksandr Sasha Hudzlin, Cartesi Founder and CEO, Erick deMoura, Community Gaming CEO, Chris Gonsalves, and Blockade Games Co-founder and CTO, Ben Heirdorn.
On October 30, a New Members Presentation was held to feature the newest members of the fast-growing organization. Representatives from the companies presented namely Ana-Maria Yyanakieva, Invest Manager of Outlier Ventures, Justine Renken, Senior Brand Manager of Ark.io, David Hoppe, Managing Partner at Gamma Law, Joe Parise, Co-founder of Second Legion, Boburjon Muydinov, Head of Business Development of Division Network, Yang Adjia, Vice President for Strategy & Business Operations of Turner Sports, Shayna Stewart, Director of Strategic Business Development of Turner Sports, Yakov Barinsky, Co-founder and CEO of HASH CIB.
Before the year ends, more companies joined BGA, and last November 30 they presented in the New Members Presentation. The new member companies are $WHALE and E1337, BCA Solutions, GOATi Entertainment, Reality Gaming Group, Guida & Associates, Gala Games, Axana Games, AvaLabs, Tokenization Limited, The Coin Tribune, Gamee, and GamerHash.
As more members join the BGA, its mission to create an ecosystem where it becomes an undeniable force to be reckoned with across the industry will be possible through fostering opportunities and engagements for collaborations and knowledge sharing. Moreover, the world is at its inflection point, this year changed everything from social, economic, and institutional structures yet as BGA continues to find ways to promote strong communities around games, more companies are joining the mission to disrupt the industry — together. As an evolving organization with eyes set to the future, its commitment to engage its members and scale its value will continue to 2021.
Borget is optimistic for the organization moving forward and explains in broad strokes the plans for the coming year, “We will pursue to reach out and bridge the gaps within the broader gaming industry. This will be more relevant as several titles like Axie Infinity, Sorare, Gods Unchained, Town Star, Upland, Fantastec SWAP, Somnium Space, The Sandbox Game, F1 Delta Time are alive and growing.”
About the Blockchain Game Alliance
The Blockchain Game Alliance is an organization committed to promoting blockchain within the game industry. Our goal is to spread awareness about blockchain technologies and encourage adoption by highlighting their potential to foster new ways to create, publish, play, and build strong communities around games.
The BGA also provides an open forum for individuals and companies to share knowledge and collaborate, create common standards, establish best practices, and network.
Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/BGameAlliance
Join us on Discord: https://discord.gg/9MXnj5x
Learn more about the BGA: http://www.blockchaingamealliance.org
