- Dark Machine is a mech-based esports 7v7 arena-shooter style game built on Unreal Engine 5. As such, it can be thought of as a unique blend of Transformers and Halo.
- Dark Machine is a cross-media IP, collaborating with legends such as Goro Taniguchi (One Piece Film: Red, CodeGeass) and Hidetaka Tenjin (Macross-series, Gundam-series) to produce global media for broadcast and streaming.
- With Tencent as an investor, a grant from Immutable , partnerships with media giants, and a wide list of other partners, Dark Machine is in a good position to grow as a Web3 game .
- The co-founders have 20+ years experience working as directors / producers in top gaming studios led by the former M&A leader of SegaSammy and the creator of Elite Beat Agents and Lips.
The Gaming industry & Market
The video game industry has come a long way since its humble beginnings in the 1970s, with Atari credited for releasing the first game, Pong. As of mid-2020, Fortnite had been played for a cumulative total of 3.8 billion days, which equates to 10.4 million years.
According to a report from Newzoo , we see that in 2023, there is more than 3.3 billion gamers worldwide with more than half coming from the Asia-Pacific region. Now when we consider that the next generations are going to devote much more time than us to digital experiences (they will grow up with them), there’s a lot of reason to believe that the gaming industry will continue to boom.
Further , we note that the total revenue from the gaming industry in 2023 was around $184 billion and was dominated by mobile games.
This industry is already huge and with the projected growth, it is fair to assume that we are going to witness the emergence of totally new types of games in the coming years. In fact, Gaming typically goes through paradigm shifts where every 15/20 years the types of games change, and everything in between changes. In our view , the rise of Play-To-Own will be similar to the rise of Free-to-Play 15 years ago.
Web 3.0 Games - An emerging verticals
Over the next 10 years, there is a strong case to be made that most games will incorporate web3 tech and ownership layers, enabling web3 to become a dominant business model in gaming. In fact, investors are betting big on this sector. After infrastructure, it is the sector that attracts the highest funding , with cumulative investment amounts of $16.3 billion from 2021 to 2023.
Moreover, the blockchain gaming market volume has grown at an annual average rate of 58%, and this trend will likely continue as more and more investors understand the mass adoption potential of the crypto-gaming industry.
However, while Web 3.0 games started to boom in 2021, especially with the NFT mania , their limited design and questionable tokenomics were unsustainable. Let’s face it, this first generation of games were much more for DeFi traders , whose sole motivation for engaging in the games was money with games like Axie Infinity or other Pay-to-Earn models.
But this is changing.
We believe that the next generation of Web 3.0 games will be driven by real gamers, here to play, have fun and escape their daily lives. As an illustration of this shift, we note that the Epic Games Store in the United States now offers around 70 blockchain games and this number is expected to continue growing.
In our view, this is why the biggest investment opportunities in gaming lie in the Web 3.0 space, and this is what Dark Machine is currently building.
Overview of Dark Machine
Project
Dark Machine is a mech-based n esports 7v7 arena-shooter style game built on Unreal Engine 5. As such, it can be thought of as a unique blend of Transformers and Halo. Here’s an overview of what the gameplay will look like.
The game is set in a dark world where giant mechs battle and combine to colossal heights while using creative destruction to overwhelm opposing mechs and teams. In this intriguing gameplay, the key to victory is the efficient enlargement of mechs through a russian doll style donning of increasingly larger mechs. Increasing your size as a mech, increases the ability to wreak destruction to the arena. This process leads to unique collaborative strategies and provides the opportunity to change the movement flow within the arena.
But over and above, Dark Machine is also a cross-media IP, collaborating with legends in the Japanese anime space to produce global media for broadcast and streaming.
Esports redefined
Dark Machine aims to challenge the status quo of esports by organising decentralised daily tournaments with:
- DAO in charge of organising the tournaments.
- Presence of global sponsors through decentralised sponsorship platforms.
- A mix of skill-to-earn, play-for-fun, and free-to-play
- Token at the core of this initiatives which allow for an entire web3 economy to take place
The Team
Meta-X is the team behind Dark Machine. This is a Japanese team of leading game industry experts, all of whom have contributed to the development of notable games for companies such as SquareEnix, Bandai Namco and Microsoft, to name just a few.
Altogether, the co-founders have 20+ years experience working as directors / producers in top gaming studios led by the former M&A leader of SegaSammy and the creator of Elite Beat Agents and Lips.
- Takashi Murakoshi, CEO of Meta-X: 20+ years in the gaming industry, serial entrepreneurs, and former head of M&A at SegaSammy, and ex-CEO of Spike.
- Keiichi Yano, CCO of Meta-X: 25+ years in the gaming industry, 3-time entrepreneur, co-founder of iNiS, known for ‘Elite Beat Agents' and 'Evangelion Battlefields.
- Hiro Sato, CBO of Meta-X: 12+ years in the gaming industry, and blockchain serial entrepreneur.
- Ryota Kobayashi, CMO of Meta-X: 12+ years in marketing and serial entrepreneur.
- Goro Taniguchi, Creative Producer: known for ‘One Piece Film: Red’ and ‘Code-Geass.’
- Hidetaka Tenjin: Chief Mech Designer; known for ‘Gundam-series’ and ‘Macross-series.’
Alongside them, there is a strong team of professionals leveraging their extensive gaming and blockchain expertise to make Dark Machine the ambitious goal of becoming the first mass Web3 esports franchise that will see much larger adoption than Web2 esports.
The Japanese gaming culture
The main target audience of Dark Machine is the Japanese market. This is a promising market because gaming in Japan is huge and this country is considered one of the most influential in video gaming, with iconic companies like Nintendo, Sony, and Sega. Moreover, the gaming culture has also significantly influenced the country's fashion, business, and entire way of life.
All of this contributed to Japan's remarkable gaming sector. In fact, Japan was the third largest gaming market by revenue in 2023.
Focusing on esports, we note that this subsector is expanding rapidly , with a projected steady growth rate expected to persist in the coming years.
Partners
With Tencent as a lead investor (the largest gaming company by revenue in 2023 ), a grant from Immutable, partnerships with media legends, and a wide list of other partners, Dark Machine is in a strong position to grow as a Web3 game.
Tokenomics
The token behind Dark Machine will be $MXNA (Machina) and will be used to participate in the in-game economies, and represent governance rights within the ecosystem.
The Token Generation Event (TGE) is set to take place in the middle of 2024 where the maximum supply of $MXNA will be 1 billion. The initial allocation and vesting will be as follows:
References
https://www.deconstructoroffun.com/blog/2022/6/17/axie-infinity-part-2-redemption-or-ruin
https://www.immutable.com/play/dark-machine
https://newzoo.com/resources/trend-reports/newzoo-global-games-market-report-2023-free-version
https://swissborg.com/blog/crypto-report-for-2024
https://twitter.com/DarkMachineGame
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXmUl0fnC34
https://xangle.io/en/research/detail/1617
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