Gala Games’ blockchain game Grit will debut on the Epic Games Store

Web3 gaming company Gala Games said it will publish its blockchain games on the Epic Games Store, starting with the Wild West title Grit.

That’s a big step for the visibility and mainstream potential of games with non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which use the blockchain to authenticate unique digital items and enable players to resell items. The exact launch time hasn’t been set yet but it has a live store page.

While Valve has banned NFT games, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney said Epic would allow them on the store, which has more than 194 million users.

Gala Games hopes to bring Web3 games to the masses, exposing millions of gamers to this new genre of entertainment and solidifying its place as a leader in the burgeoning Web3 games industry. While blockchain game companies have raised a lot of money ($1.2 billion of $3.4 billion raised by all game startups in the first quarter), the player base has been small. Reaching the mainstream — even amid an outcry over objections to NFTs from some gamers — has become the goal of all blockchain game companies focusing on high-quality content.

Grit is the pioneer

Grit, a battle royale title set in the Wild West being built by Team Grit, is the first of a series of Gala Games titles that could hit the Epic Games Store. This announcement follows on the heels of a number of firsts for the Web3 company. Gala recently announced a Web3 first-person-shooter (FPS) by a triple-A studio, launched the Gala Music platform, and announced the company’s upcoming launch of Spider Tanks, the world’s first NFT esport.

“Epic is a pioneer and visionary in the video game industry. Gala Games’ titles being available on the Epic Game Store brings legitimacy to this new genre of gaming,” said John Osvald, president of Games at Gala Games, in a statement. “Easy access to Web3 games is a turning point for those players who have not yet seen how digital ownership can enrich the gaming experience.”

Grit is built on the Unreal Engine with realistic physics. Players need to saddle up, ride and fight through a town. Every game of Grit is different, from Train Chase mode to Golden Horse with the promise of epic showdowns and shootouts.

Players face off against a gang of gunslingers with more than 400 old-school gun variations. Play modes include solo, duo and squad. Showdowns take place on horseback or steam engine train tops, so players need to make sure their arsenal is ready. Fans can wishlist the free game, launching later in 2022.

Galaverse event

To celebrate Galaverse (June 6-9, 2022) starting today in Malta, Gala Games will be offering a special sale of “The Gunslinger Box”, which will unlock one of 10,000 Grit avatars. Each character has it own specific perks and attributes that the owner can play as in game.

Attributes are generative and will provide a unique look to each character. Owners will be able to take with them in game their preferred loadout of specific weapons’ skins, providing them an advantage over their counterparts. The sale starts today for Galaverse attendees and opens up gradually across the week: Node Owners get access on June 7 and Gala Gold on June 8. The public will have “The Gunslinger Box” sale access on June 9. Each group will have access to the sale for a duration of 12 hours.

“Here at Team Grit we are invested in this new ecosystem and see all the value that Web3 can bring to the gameplay experience,” said Jon Mavor, CTO at Team Grit, in a statement. “We are excited to be working with Gala Games and by our presence on the Epic Games Store. Web3 will make players’ experiences in the Wild West even better.”

Mavor and Bob Berry started Team Grit as a game development and publishing company. They previously created Planetary Annihilation and Monday Night Combat. Grit is Team Grit’s first game.

More details about Grit will be revealed over the course of Galaverse, June 6 to June 8 in Malta.

Crypto gaming

Gala Games has built a platform that combines play-to-earn mechanics and NFTs, and it is recruiting game developers who know how to make fun games. The company is working with developers like Will Wright and Peter Molyneux and popular entertainment brands like The Walking Dead. Osvald said in an earlier interview that the focus is on making gamers happy.

Gala is a Web3 entertainment ecosystem that empowers users to earn rewards for their routine entertainment activities, such as playing, listening, or watching. Through the real ownership made possible by blockchain technology, Gala is able to strategically insert ownership into multiple levels of an entertainment experience.

This is best exemplified by gaming, where a Gala player is able to own things like the land where the battle is played. You can sell your items as you would trade a cryptocurrency, so long as you can figure out how to do it.

Gala Games has had success on a financial front with small audiences on its Townstar and Spider Tanks (beta) games (with more than 1.3 million gamers altogether), but the goal is to convert millions more players to blockchain games.

Gala Games built its blockchain ecosystem on the Gala Games token (GALA), which was created on the ERC-20 standard for the Ethereum blockchain, and it also works with the Binance Smart Chain. Through the token, players can invest in their game assets, like Spider Tanks, and own them. They can resell them as well. Their tokens also give them the right to vote on the future direction of the game’s development.

Gala Games’ GALA token has a market capitalization of $520 million, which is far below its peak in November of $5.4 billion. It has followed the pattern of many blockchain game systems in that market drop. But that hasn’t disabled the company’s ability to fund new games.

The challenge is in making the process of buying, storing, and selling NFTs into an easy process that mainstream gamers can easily adopt. Gala uses Metamask wallets and the OpenSea trading platform.