Polygon and Immutable have just announced their partnership for the Immutable zkEVM, the new home of Web3 gaming and the Immutable X platform. This partnership is unambiguously the most important for Web3 gaming of the year, arguably ever.

Polygon and Immutable have been seen as something of rivals until now. Both based on Ethereum, Polygon and Immutable have been disparate ecosystems with sizable overlap in vision. Immutable aims to be the engine behind Web3 gaming and already has a veritable feast of the biggest projects in development, including Illuivium, Ember Sword, and Guild of Guardians. Polygon has had more of a holistic approach, onboarding big names such as Starbucks and Reddit, but their interest in gaming is clear. So, until this point, they appeared to be competing.

Partnering with Immutable is a monumental step forward in our mission to empower developers and enable users to truly own their in-game assets […] By leveraging Immutable’s top world-class gaming platform, game development becomes seamless, allowing for the creation of rich and unique gaming experiences.

— Ryan Wyatt, President of Polygon Labs

What Is Immutable zkEVM?

Immutable zkEVM is a new EVM-compatible (Ethereum Virtual Machine) ZK-rollup — a blockchain dedicated to gaming on Ethereum but that is low cost, highly scalable, and secure, powered by Polygon. Polygon’s own zkEVM is set to launch Mainnet Beta next week and is said to be the “Holy Grail of Ethereum scaling.”

By combining the #1 web3 gaming platform – currently serving hundreds of game studios and millions of players – with Polygon’s best-in-class zkEVM technology, we are building an Ethereum-centric gaming ecosystem that is poised to take Web3 mainstream and bring digital ownership to millions of people around the world […] Billions of dollars of skins are sold each year with no rights for players – we’re changing that so players are in control, and ownership is the expectation

— Robbie Ferguson, Co-founder and President of Immutable

It’s no secret that gaming is intensive in many technical aspects, and that scaling and gas fees need to be far more efficient than Ethereum itself can currently manage. This not only resolves that problem, but the Immutable zkEVM is dedicated solely to gaming.

Technological partnerships, littered with acronyms and initialisms, can be a little dry to read about, particularly if you’re just interested in gaming. So, outsource your weighing of the importance of this matter to me: this is a seminal moment for Web3 gaming and a unison that will dictate the pacing of blockchain’s integration into the games industry.