Guild of Guardians is one of the most highly anticipated Web3 games in development and in September 2022, they released some impressive news. Now, that announcement is coming into effect.
Guild of Guardians, a fantasy, action RPG, is one of the flagship games on Immutable X and has accrued a staggeringly large waitlist to play. The studio behind the game, Stepico, has a pedigree in mobile gaming and is looking to make Guild of Guardians their crowning achievement. Although the project has received investment, it also raised $24 million in NFTs and tokens.
Along the way, the team has partnered with the likes of Ubisoft and The Sandbox, two common names in Web3. However, in September last year, Guild of Guardians announced a multi-year partnership with eight of the most reputable esports organizations in the industry: Cloud9, NAVI, Fnatic, Ninjas in Pyjamas (NiP), NRG, SK Gaming, T1, and Team Liquid.
These partnerships are multifaceted, but the overall objective is building an audience in esports, at least to my eye. Guild of Guardians is set up to be an esport down the line with competition and leaderboards front and center. The first step of this partnership is slightly more cynical, but it’s interesting for a few reasons.
The first step is a sale where you will be able to buy NFT esports heroes from each of the partnered teams. Below are the details:
– There will be eight esports LEGENDARY Heroes representing each of the esports teams, which will be playable in-game
– Each esport Hero will cost approximately $99 USD — payable in Ethereum (This is an approximation due to the fluctuation in ETH)
– There will be a supply cap of 16,000 Heroes in total
– There will be an Allowlist, meaning only a select number of purchasers will have exclusive early access to the sale for a 24 hr period. After which, the sale will be opened to the public. But we’ll share further details on this in the coming days!
– We are launching the sale on Immutable X — this means you don’t have to pay any pesky gas fees. Users will need Ethereum loaded onto Immutable X to purchase. Stay tuned as we’ll share a how-to guide in the coming days
– The sale will be open for one week. This is a one-time primary sale; once it has closed, the collection will not be offered for sale again, but you may be able to purchase and exchange Heroes on secondary marketplaces, including Immutable X, TokenTrove, Rarible and AQUA.xyz
– Each summon has a chance to be a “special edition” colour variant, with the following probabilities: 10% Warrior, 2% Elite and a 1 of 1 Mythic
– By purchasing an esport Hero, you gain access to exclusive perks and utilities
The “Esports Exclusives digital collectible sale” (don’t say NFT anymore) goes live on the 8th February 2023 at 6pm EST.
I can’t help but be a little uncomfortable at an NFT sale for an unreleased game to the tune of $1.6 million in Ethereum, but the upsides outside of the money are obvious. Die-hard fans of each of these esports teams may well want to grab their team’s legendary Hero, which onboards them. Each team will presumably promote this sale (and will suffer some backlash as a result, no doubt!) which will be incredible exposure for Guild of Guardians. Finally, bringing major esports teams into the fold is a strong move for Guild of Guardian’s esports scene which is barely a foetus at present.
Esports in Web3 gaming has been on the quiet ascent in the last year, from Coinbase sponsoring and partnering with Team Liquid, to Axie Infinity’s esports fund and partnership with MetaGuild by Method. The foundations are forming all around us for gaming’s future and you’re right here watching each brick being laid.
