Blockchain games are rejuvenating, how does Gala Games stand out?

Rejuvenation of the gaming industry through Blockchain - What sets Gala Games apart?

Original Article: https://medium.com/@gryphsisacademy_86434/gala-games-%E9%93%BE%E6%B8%B8%E7%84%95%E5%8F%91%E7%AC%AC%E4%BA%8C%E6%98%A5-gala-%E8%83%BD%E5%90%A6%E8%84%B1%E9%A2%96%E8%80%8C%E5%87%BA-f0d9153007a2

Publication Date: November 24, 2023

Author: @EdisonHuu, @GryphsisAcademy

Introduction:

The impressive performance of the Bigtime token after its launch has attracted market attention, and major blockchain games are getting ready. The GameFi sector is experiencing a small boom, and GameFi, which has been quiet for some time, is back in people’s sights. Among them, Gala Games leads the way, starting from a low point of $0.012 on October 19th and reaching $0.025 at the time of writing this article, with a cumulative increase of over 100%. What is the reason for the strong performance of $Gala? With the market stabilizing, the bottom of the altcoins appearing, and the long-silent blockchain gaming track seeing a revival, can $Gala become a valuable investment target in the GameFi sector? This article will analyze it for you.

1. Project Summary

1.1 Introduction to Gala Games

Gala Games is a blockchain game development company founded in 2018, aiming to create a decentralized game ecosystem. Gala Games is both a game development platform and a game aggregation platform.

Although some games are still under development, Gala Games’ official website has confirmed the launch of 18 games, including role-playing, simulation management, card games, tower defense, shooting, and other types. In addition to the popular Spider Tanks in the blockchain gaming community this year, Gala Games has also collaborated with the traditional gaming platform Epic to launch a battle royale game called GRIT, similar to PUBG.

1.2 How Gala Games Operates and Node System Analysis

Gala has established a dedicated network of nodes to maintain and ensure system security. The node system provides decentralized computing power support, transaction verification, and storage services for the game ecosystem. The entire game ecosystem runs on a distributed node network instead of a centralized server controlled by a single entity. The founder nodes of Gala provide the driving force for the operation of the Gala ecosystem. In Gala Games’ decentralized node network, node users can decide which games can be launched on the Gala Games platform through consensus voting. In addition, all major community decisions are determined by node voting.

Blockchain Games Rejuvenated, How Does Gala Games Stand Out?

Gala Node Operation Chart

2.Project Details

2.1 Team

Gala Games’ co-founder and CEO, Eric Schiermeyer, and game chairman, John Osvald, both have backgrounds at Zynga. Eric was the CEO of Intermix Media, the company behind MysLianGuaice, and also a co-founder and creative director at Zynga. Like Eric, John also has extensive experience in the game industry at Zynga. Zynga is a social game service provider founded in 2007 and is a global leader in the interactive entertainment industry. Zynga has a wide range of popular game franchises and has a significant global influence in over 175 countries and regions. Its games have been downloaded over 20 billion times on mobile devices. FarmVille and Zynga Poker are among Zynga’s standout works.

FarmVille Series

Warren Marshall and Craig Matchett are both involved in the 3D design work for games. Warren is Gala’s co-founder and art director, who previously worked at Epic Games and was involved in the development of the game Fortnite. As for Craig, due to his outstanding achievements in the field of 3D design, Gala officially released a separate post to announce his joining. Everyone may be familiar with the Dead Space series and the Battlefield series, both of which had Craig’s involvement in the design. His works are the result of a natural sensitivity to shapes and colors and an intense passion for research and discovery. He is an artist in the field of 3D.

Craig's Works

Jason Brinks is Gala’s Blockchain Director. On Twitter, Jason has always been the spokesperson for Gala, engaging with people interested in Gala and discussing everything related to Gala. Jason previously worked at the United Nations, and his main motivation for joining GALA is the belief that earning money through games could help lift people in developing countries out of poverty. He witnessed the corruption within these international organizations and hopes that decentralized protocols can eventually replace them.

Jason's Twitter Profile

2.2 Financing Situation

Gala has not conducted an ICO or any form of fundraising, and all the funds for founding Gala are provided by the founders themselves. Therefore, we can speculate that Gala Games received strong support from Zynga. Additionally, personally, I believe that the sale of founder nodes is a form of disguised financing. Gala officially emphasized in an article that “being a founder node is not an investment, and there should be no expectation of profit or return.” Perhaps this is also a reluctant move due to the strict regulatory policies of the US government.

Blockchain Game Revival, How Does Gala Games Stand Out?

2.3 Overview of the Gala ecosystem

Gala is an open platform that expands beyond games to include Gala Film and Gala Music in its ecosystem. In the future, all aspects of the Gala ecosystem will be integrated into Gala’s own Project GYRI blockchain. Additionally, Gala has teamed up with Unity to create the Gala metaverse, VOXverse. Here are some of the hottest games in Gala’s main gaming section:

1. Town Star

Town Star is a farm simulation game developed by the Gala team. It is also Gala Games’ first game and features gameplay inspired by Zynga’s hit FarmVille series. Players need to use funds for crop planting and factory construction, balancing consumption and economy, and earn profits by climbing the game’s leaderboard. Additionally, players can purchase NFTs to accelerate production within the farm, similar to rechargeable game currency.

2. Spider Tanks

Spider Tanks is a PVP competitive game played on PC. Players need to purchase NFT game equipment and engage in team-based PVP battles with other players on the game map to obtain resources. The game was developed by a Dutch game studio called Gamedia and is the first game launched on the GYRI project.

Blockchain Game Revival, How Does Gala Games Stand Out?

3. Mirandus

Mirandus is a fantasy role-playing RPG game where players have complete control and freedom. In the game, players have absolute freedom of choice. They can venture into the wilderness alone, battle monsters in the depths of the forest and dungeons, join one of the kingdoms, serve as a knight in their court, or establish a shop in one of the five great cities. Ownership of in-game assets by players is a core mechanism, and although the game has not been launched yet, player expectations are high.

4. GRIT

GRIT was launched on the Epic platform on June 6, 2022, making it the first Web3 game to be released on a traditional gaming platform. It features a battle royale mechanism similar to PUBG and is set in the wild west. The game has superior production quality and excellent details, and players can purchase firearms and weapons in the NFT marketplace.

5. Gala Music and Gala Film

Gala brings movies and music onto the blockchain and has signed many artists, such as The Rock from Gala Film and Snoppy Dogg from Gala Music. Players can purchase NFTs of movies or music albums and earn rewards while watching movies or listening to music, “Watch to earn” or “Listen to earn”.

Blockchain Gaming Revives, How Does Gala Games Stand Out?

6. VOXverse

In June last year, Gala Games partnered with Unity Technologies to develop the “VOXverse” 3D metaverse project. VOXverse integrates all high-quality projects in the Gala ecosystem, including games, music, and movies, with the central focus on NFT-related avatars, “VOX Collectible Series”. Each player in the game will have a unique VOX collector’s edition avatar, which they will use as their virtual appearance.

3. Gala Operations

3.1 Major Historical Events and Price Chart

First, let’s take a look at the major events of Gala since its establishment.

2019-2020	Gala team completes early project preparations and plans, including the production and release of popular games Town Star and Mirandus
2020.9	Trading of Gala tokens begins
2021.3.22	The Wall Street Journal published an article about Gala Games here
2021.3.22	Gala Games announced sponsorship of Mazer gaming
2021.3.27	Strategic partnership formed with LianGuaiC Global. LianGuaiC Global is a network built using cutting-edge blockchain technology, utilizing Proof of Stake and Deterministic Masternodes. This partnership laid a solid foundation for the efficient operation of Gala nodes.
2021.3.31	Established partnership with Polygon
2021.7.10	Node voting approved, Spider Tanks officially joins Gala Games
2021.8.5	Gala tokens successfully bridged to the BSC chain using the cross-chain bridge P.Network
2021.8.10	VOX NFTs launched
2021.9.4	Spider Tanks enters beta testing
2021.9.13	Gala token listed on Binance
2021.9.18	Town Star introduces P2E reward token Town Coin, officially starting Gala’s play-to-earn journey
2021.10.7	Announced collaboration with Wemade Tree to promote the global development of blockchain games. (The MIR series of games released on Wemix is a representative work of Wemade)
2021.11.6	Town Star nodes go live, similar to the founder’s running mechanism and function
2021.11.12	Official announcement: Mirandus VOX goes live on December 6
2021.12.12	Three new games launched on the Gala platform, including the business simulation game Legacy, multiplayer apocalypse survival game The Walking Dead: Empires, and AAA-level first-person design game LAST EXPDITION
2022.2	Gala Music officially goes live, expanding the Gala ecosystem from games to the world. Gala announces collaboration with renowned rapper Snoop Dogg, deploying his latest album (B.O.D.R) onto the blockchain, with the tracks being sold as NFTs
2022.5	Teaser for Gala’s own blockchain Project GYRI release. The future Gala ecosystem will be integrated into this chain
2022.6.6	Gala announces partnership with Epic Games. Epic Store announces the launch of the Web3 battle royale game GRIT, marking a historic collaboration as Web3 games enter the mainstream and change the global gaming landscape
2022.6.6	Gala Film officially goes live
2022.11.4	Hackers discovered a misconfiguration in the P.Network cross-chain bridge and launched an attack, minting unlimited pGala on the BSC and depositing it into exchanges for arbitrage. This incident caused Gala’s largest single-day price drop of 30%. Although compensation has been provided to affected users, it created considerable FUD within the community.
2023.1.9	Gala announces on social media that Gala Film is collaborating with renowned actors Dwayne Johnson and Mark Wahlberg to produce two movies. The tweet was later deleted for unknown reasons
2023.3.31	Established a strategic partnership with Huobi for collaboration in Web3 ecosystem construction and community development
2023.5.15	Gala token undergoes Gala (V2) contract upgrade and replacement 3.2 Business Operations Data Analysis Gala’s business consists mainly of two parts – the sale of founder nodes and the sale of game NFTs. It is worth noting that Gala’s official website is relatively centralized, and the data in the store is not on the blockchain. Therefore, we mainly use the official website data for analysis. Let’s start with the node sale. Gala’s official website shows that the number of active nodes has reached 44,854. Active nodes refer to founder nodes that run Gala servers for more than 6 hours a day and receive Gala token rewards. The actual number of nodes will definitely be higher than the number of active nodes. The total node limit is 50,000. The earliest pricing for founder nodes was $2,000, and after selling 19,000, they started to increase in price in stages. The price increases after every 100 nodes sold, so the later ones are more expensive. Buyers not only have to bear the high price but also face the problem of longer payback or even profitability cycles due to the halving of founder node rewards on July 21st each year. Gala has already sold over 44,000 nodes at this point and has undoubtedly been successful in node sales. Next is Gala’s NFT sale. The official website shows that Gala’s first-level NFTs have sold over 26,000. The more important NFTs in the game are often sold out quickly. We have also created a detailed table for the royalty income of Gala’s most popular NFT series in the secondary market. Gala has many series of NFTs, but the ones with less trading volume in the secondary market are not included. As we can see, whether it is the first-level issuance or the overall royalty income in the secondary market, Gala’s performance is quite impressive. 3.3 Community Operations Data Analysis Looking at social media, Gala Games currently has 466,000 followers on Twitter, and there are about 200,000 members in the official Discord server. Despite the current bear market, whenever Gala Games’ official Twitter account or “PR” Jason’s tweets are posted, the engagement in the comments section is high. The community activity in the official Discord chat group is also high. Gala Games Twitter homepage Gala Games Discord chat channel 4. $Gala Token 4.1 Token Usage The main current uses of $Gala are: buying founder nodes and buying in-game NFTs. The official website also states that in the future, Gala’s Project GYRI will increase the role of Gala tokens in the ecosystem, giving them additional power. About nodes: Currently, the price of founder nodes on the official website is around 5M Gala, which is equivalent to approximately $100,000 based on the current market price. Users who purchase a node license can run the founder node on their personal computer or virtual private server without having to stake any tokens. The maximum number of founder nodes issued is 50,000, and once purchased, they are permanent and cannot be resold on the secondary market. The current number of active nodes has reached around 44,000. Buying founder nodes with Gala is similar to mining, as the node functions as a proof-of-stake (POS) node. Half of the Gala produced daily is distributed to the founder nodes, and to receive the daily reward points, the node must be operational for at least 6 hours. The amount of rewards you can receive is determined by Gala’s official point system. The longer the node runs, the greater the rewards. In addition to the daily Gala production, founder nodes also receive game tokens (such as $Town from Town Star) and randomly assigned game NFTs as rewards. On July 21st of each year, the daily Gala production is halved. Official website node price 4.2 Token Economic Model The maximum supply of Gala is 50 billion. Before January 13th of this year, it only included daily production. Half of the daily produced Gala is allocated to founder nodes according to the mechanism, while the other half goes to the “Gala Games Conservatorship,” which can be understood as a community treasury fund for supporting Gala Games’ development. The daily production of Gala will be halved on July 21st each year. It is important to note that the $Gala allocated daily to founder nodes is not directly sent to their wallet accounts by the project team. The nodes need to mint the tokens themselves based on the amount allocated daily on the official website. In addition, to address the issue of reducing the motivation of founder nodes’ daily rewards due to halving each year in the current model, Gala introduced the LianGuaiY-BY-BURN burning mechanism on January 13th. After that, when using Gala for purchases and transactions on the platform (excluding nodes), the Gala used will be burned, and an equivalent amount of Gala will be distributed to founder nodes. We know that the Gala originally used for purchases is highly likely to flow to the project team. Whether the project team utilizes it to support project development or sells it on the secondary market, they have control over it. The LianGuaiY-BY-BURN mechanism transfers the tokens that the project team should have received to the nodes, increasing their earnings. $Gala upgraded its smart contract from the original $Gala token to the new $Gala token on May 15th this year, known as the Gala V2 upgrade. The accurate records of the contract replacement before and after, as well as the daily minting and burning amounts from September 11th, 2020 to the present, are shown in the board above. Currently, it has been 948 days since the start of minting, with a total minted supply of approximately 48.3 billion and a total circulating supply of approximately 27.3 billion. The maximum supply remains at 50 billion. Considering $Gala’s economic model, with this burning mechanism and the halving of $Gala’s output each year, if a blockbuster game is developed and the demand increases, $Gala could easily become a deflationary model. As mentioned earlier, the project team occasionally burns tokens. For example, on May 15th this year, the Gala team directly burned nearly 21 billion $Gala tokens (as shown in the image below). The reason behind this is that although Gala officially stated that this revenue is used to support project development and ecosystem funding, many community members still view them as a token economic risk for the project as a whole. In short, Gala believes that a large-scale token burn will help reduce holders’ concerns, as they may be worried that the Gala team will sell a significant amount of their tokens, leading to price declines. 4.3 Holdings Address Analysis Data Source: Etherscan, Nansen According to the data, as of November 22, 2023, there are 18,726 $Gala holdings addresses on the Ethereum network. The top 10 addresses hold 42.81% of the total $Gala amount, while the top 100 holdings addresses account for 73.26%. Most of the top 10 addresses are exchange addresses. Data Source: Scopescan Additionally, according to Scopescan data, the holdings of $Gala in centralized exchanges (CEX) account for 32.27% of the total supply, while Binance is the largest holder among CEX, accounting for 21% of the total supply. 4.4 Fund Analysis Binance $Gala Spot Price K-Line Chart Source: Trading View According to Trading View data, $Gala hit bottom on October 19th in the Binance spot market and started to rise with increasing volume in the following market trends. The current price is around $0.025, which is a rebound of about 100% from the bottom. A standard W-bottom structure has formed at the bottom, with the neckline reaching a strong support level from the previous downtrend. It is clear that $Gala has most likely reached its bottom and is ready to embrace the bull market. $Gala Contract Position Data on Binance According to Binance contract data, the number ratio of long and short positions, the ratio of large holders’ positions, and the ratio of large holders’ accounts are all greater than 1 recently. It is evident that both large holders and retail investors are relatively bullish and have a positive attitude towards the future price of $Gala. 5. Track Analysis 5.1 GameFi Track Status Gala belongs to the GameFi track, which is a combination of “Game” and “Finance.” It refers to blockchain games that provide economic incentives for players to earn while playing. The GameFi ecosystem uses cryptocurrencies, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and blockchain technology to create virtual game environments. Players can earn in-game rewards by completing tasks, battling other players, and leveling up. They can also transfer game assets and trade them on cryptocurrency exchanges and NFT markets. GameFi Market Cap Source: Footprint Analytics Gala Active User Count Source: Footprint Analytics From this chart, we can see that although there are signs of recovery in the blockchain gaming sector recently, the GameFi track has generally been in a slump state since 2022. The active user count of Gala has also experienced a significant decrease and has maintained a stable state for a long period of time (This data is based on the number of addresses interacting with Gala’s on-chain contracts, i.e., addresses used for purchasing Gala. It is not accurate for centralized Gala platforms and is definitely lower than the actual active user count. However, it is still meaningful for our trend analysis here). If the GameFi frenzy in 2021 was the result of a bull market and hype, then the price of GameFi Tokens is now returning to its value after the bubble burst and has reached a stable bottom stage. 5.2 Gala’s Advantages in the GameFi Track The basic logic behind the GameFi track’s hype in the previous bull market was the Play-to-Earn (P2E) mechanism, as playing games could earn money. Blockchain games attracted a large number of people, causing token prices to soar. Gala also took advantage of the P2E mechanism and achieved a thousand-fold increase in the previous bull market. Why did I put quotes around “took advantage”? Because Gala’s team has a different philosophy from most blockchain games. Gala doesn’t really focus on P2E. Take Town Star as an example. Although it’s free to play, achieving resource balance is extremely difficult, and players can easily get stuck in a dead end during gameplay. The game prioritizes players’ gaming experience rather than making quick money. Gala’s true vision has always been to create blockchain games that people genuinely want to play, and that’s the Gala team’s unwavering mission. How to understand this? Gala wants people to play blockchain games not because they can make money, but because the games are genuinely fun to play. While most Web3 gaming companies like Immutable X and Axie Infinity focus more on P2E and infrastructure development, Gala’s games, such as GRIT and Spider Tanks, narrate their vision of “creating blockchain games that you genuinely want to play” through their excellent production quality, interesting gameplay, and meticulous attention to detail. In terms of game development teams, Gala Games has a rare team consisting of renowned developers from the traditional gaming industry, with Blockchain Director Jason as the exception. In contrast to other blockchain games teams, Gala excels in game production and delivery. 6. Potential Risks in Project Development 1. If Gala wants to develop high-quality, genuinely fun blockchain games, they need to be aware that the game development cycle may be longer, which is not conducive to short-term increase in token demand. 2. Unlike other Web3 projects, Gala Games is more like a Web2 game developer, with a website and store that are more opaque and centralized. 3. Whether Gala can surpass projects like Immutable X, which focus on foundational infrastructure development, through its own Project GYRI, and meet the expectations of game developers to attract more developers, remains to be seen. The development of GYRI will have a significant impact on the Gala ecosystem. 7. Summary In order to reduce holders’ concerns and destroy 21 billion $Gala, and to support the operation of nodes by indirectly allocating the funds originally belonging to the team to the nodes, we can see that the Gala team really wants to do a good job with the project, and truly wants to build for the long term, with $Gala holders and the community’s interests in mind. Secondly, $Gala is relatively concentrated in terms of holdings, with a large amount already released that can increase in value, indicating that the bottom has been formed and separated from the bottom. According to the contract position data, it is also easy to see that there is a strong bullish sentiment among large short-term holders. At the same time, when we look back at the popular game The Beacon of Treasure Dao, GMT running shoes, and even the P2E concept, after experiencing speculation, it will eventually be a mess like the current GameFi situation. Whether it is traditional games or Web3 games after the frenzy, I believe that the P2E mechanism is just a pile of fuel for assistance, and the true success of a game, like League of Legends, PUBG, or Tomb Raider, Assassin’s Creed, is what can attract players to stay for a long time and ensure the long-term stable development of the game project. This is the endgame of the gaming industry. Fun games attract more users, increasing the demand for in-game items, increasing the demand for $Gala, and naturally driving up the token price. The current price of $Gala has already rebounded from the bottom, and we have already moved out of the bear market. If you are bullish on the GameFi track and can reasonably control the risks, there is no doubt that $Gala is a coin worth investing in. I believe that with Gala’s vision and ambition, it is only a matter of time before they create a truly fun Web3 hit game and retain users for the long term. References 1. Gala: Entertainment that empowers 2. Gala Games – Medium Disclaimer This report is an original work completed by a student from @GryphsisAcademy under the guidance of @CryptoScott_ETH. The author is solely responsible for all content, which does not necessarily reflect the views of Gryphsis Academy or the organization commissioning the report. Editorial content and decisions are not influenced by readers. Please be aware that the author may hold cryptocurrencies mentioned in this report. This document is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as the basis for investment decision-making. It is strongly recommended that you conduct your own research and consult with independent financial, tax, and legal advisors before making any investment decisions. Please remember that past performance of any asset is not a guarantee of future results.