Gunzilla is launching its $GUN token on Binance as a means for its Off the Grid battle royale recreation group to commerce their gaming gadgets.
The transfer is a part of Gunzilla‘s dream of constructing Off the Grid, a hybrid Web2 and Web3 recreation, into the primary mainstream success for Web3 gaming. (Gunzilla made headlines final week by shopping for Recreation Informer and reviving the sport journalism web site that was shut down final 12 months by GameStop).
Theo Agranat, director of Web3 at Gunzilla, mentioned in an interview with GamesBeat that the $GUN token will probably be used to entry the GUNZ platform, which presents blockchain-native infrastructure for recreation builders. The $GUN token has different utility as effectively, comparable to buying in-game gadgets from the in-game market, paying for personalization gadgets and expendables, and overlaying Hex decoding charges (which we’ll describe beneath). Gamers can earn the $GUN tokens within the recreation or purchase them.
Gunzilla’s Off the Grid recreation has generated greater than 14.5 million wallets to this point on Avalanche and it has an estimated 500,000 each day lively customers. It has had 431 million transactions, with two million to a few million transactions occurring each day.
To this point, all of that has been occurring in what Web3 gaming corporations name the testnet. Now the mainnet is able to launch. By including Binance’s Web3 community, Gunzilla hopes to achieve much more avid gamers. The sport is obtainable on the Epic Video games Retailer, not on Steam, as Valve has a ban on Web3 video games.
The GUNZ ecosystem would be the first Avalanche L1 integrating with Binance, and the $GUN token would be the first Web3 gaming token to launch on Binance since Pixels debuted within the first quarter of 2024.
Off the Grid can be the primary Web3 recreation to get on consoles (PlayStation 5 and Xbox Collection X/S) and to get main streamers concerned (Timthetatman, Shroud, and many others).
The present variety of each day lively customers is beneath the spike of 900,000 each day lively customers, which was excessive partly as a result of Gunzilla introduced in influencers like Ninja to play the sport for a restricted time. It dropped to round 400,000 gamers after which began climbing again up once more.
“We totally anticipated a drop off to occur. And we additionally know that we now have solely 20% of the sport reside, and it’s early entry, so we’re simply going to proceed constructing,” Agranat mentioned.
“We really feel that we now have been capable of turn into the most important Web3 triple-A gaming ecosystem on the planet, and we’ve launched the most important Web3 gaming undertaking that has ever existed and that has been adopted by mainstream,” Agranat mentioned. “We launched a recreation the place we now have mainstream avid gamers commenting that they’re enjoying solely Off the Grid. And so we felt that the proper factor was to construct sufficient to launch on the main change on the planet, which is Binance, with [250 million users].”
Off the Grid debuted in October 2024 in early entry. Whereas it has Web3 options gamers can decide into, non-Web3 gamers can select to play the title as a free-to-play recreation the place they don’t have to interact in Web3 options in any respect.
The GUNZ platform is made for recreation builders, eliminating the necessity to make deep investments in customized blockchain structure. It presents simple to combine SDKs, enabling any studio to launch community-driven Web3 economies.
The ecosystem’s blockchain pockets, companion app, non-fungible token (NFT) market, NFT minting engine can be found on the Avalanche blockchain. The corporate plans to white label these instruments for different tasks to onboard their gaming mental property to Gunzilla’s platform.
Gameplay
The sport is ready in a dystopian sci-fi future crafted by Neill Blomkamp, inventive director for Off the Grid and the creator of movies like District 9, Elysium and Chappie. Additionally contributing is Richard Ok. Morgan, recognized for the Netflix collection Altered Carbon.
On this future, the battle royale individuals are enticed to battle one another for his or her lives on an island the place the survivor will get $100 million. Earlier than they be a part of, their limbs are sawed off in surgical procedure they usually’re changed by cybernetic limbs. If they’re killed in battle, they are often revived to battle one other day by way of futuristic medical procedures.
Blomkamp and Gunzilla rounded up a crew of gaming veterans to deal with a triple-A expertise. And thus far, Agranat mentioned that solely 20% of the sport has been rolled out for early-access gamers.
Gamers begin out in a three-play squad. Very often the gamers are coming from different hardcore battle royale video games like Apex Legends and Name of Responsibility: Warzone.
“We’re very proud of the present efficiency that we’ve had when it comes to onboarding, which has led to a gentle enhance of our person base. With each replace, we’ve had a rise in retention and conversion charges,” Agranat mentioned.
For instance, the most recent replace that Gunzilla launched made it simpler for learners to play in opposition to AI non-player characters, leading to a 35% retention charge for the second recreation. In lots of different video games, learners are killed shortly, they usually get pissed off. Over time, different enhancements will embrace ranked mode and skill-based matchmaking and different instruments to guarantee that gamers, whereas nonetheless being challenged, have a rewarding expertise, Agranat mentioned.
The Web3 angle
In a gaming session, gamers transfer into the setting and discover a Hex Dice, which they will carry round on a belt till they discover an extractor. As soon as they put the dice into the extractor, they should defend the location whereas others can assault them to cease the extraction and steal the Hex Dice.
In the event that they succeed with the extraction, whether or not they win or lose the sport, they are going to get the Hex Dice of their stock system after the sport. They click on to decode the Hex Dice, pay a small transaction payment (the fuel payment, or price of doing the transaction on the blockchain) after which get the precise in-game merchandise.
That merchandise could possibly be a cyber limb or a weapon or an attachment. They’ll additionally get beauty gadgets or skins. In the event that they don’t want these gadgets, they will checklist them on {the marketplace} and promote it to another person. Agranat mentioned that is the actual distinction between Web2 and Web3. In Web2 video games, you possibly can’t resell the merchandise for actual cash. The worth gamers get for promoting Web3 gadgets relies on the rarity of the gadgets. One distinctive merchandise — a one-of-a-kind rarity — might promote for $2 million. However many extra gadgets are stand, comparable to weapons that may promote for $5.
As the actual $GUN token launches, Gunzilla will burn the testnet tokens. Nonetheless, the gadgets that had been minted — thousands and thousands upon thousands and thousands of things that folks personal and traded or purchased — will probably be migrated from the testnet to the mainnet. Gamers will finally have the ability to take gadgets out of the sport and promote them on OpenSea.
“Individuals will retain the entire gadgets that they’ve labored laborious for, they usually can resell these as they want,” Agranat mentioned.
On Monday, the $GUN token is launching on the Binance change. Gamers will have the ability to use Ethereum to pay to finish transactions and take their tokens into the sport and buy issues on {the marketplace}. Gamers should purchase tokens on the change and use them within the recreation. As an illustration, gamers should buy a seasonal Battle Cross for the sport for $12 a month. Binance will finance a launch pool of tokens that represents about 4% of whole tokens and can make these obtainable to patrons.
You possibly can grind within the recreation and earn tokens by way of successful the sport and thru finishing missions, after which purchase one thing on {the marketplace}. Or it can save you your self the time by shopping for the token on the change after which purchase one thing on {the marketplace}. From an Off the Grid perspective, it’s merely a time saving mechanism, Agranat mentioned. In order for you some cosmetics, and also you don’t need to grind 10 hours to buy tokens within the recreation to purchase the cosmetics, then you should buy it different participant who’s has already accomplished that grind.
Sooner or later, the utility of the GUNZ ecosystem and its tokens is predicted to develop, Gunzilla plans so as to add different video games and tasks into the ecosystem. Gamers who need to transact sooner or later video games will accomplish that with the $GUN tokens that they personal.
Conversion of Web2 to Web3 gamers could also be good for enterprise, however Agranat mentioned the actual aim is to entertain gamers.
“Our aim is to simply give the absolute best, most immersive, most partaking gaming expertise,” he mentioned. “Having mentioned that, we’re not attempting to transform anybody to something. What we’re attempting to do is we’re attempting to say, ‘That is higher. We’re constructing issues. Right here is how one can personal your belongings.’ Now, if you wish to study how you can arrange a pockets, take precise possession of your belongings, self-custody, you possibly can. You possibly can hold it even when the service shuts down after which you possibly can promote it on OpenSea. However that is nonetheless about how we ship the absolute best gaming expertise, and we use [Web3] instruments that give gamers a greater expertise.”
Origins
Again in 2019, Vlad Korolov, CEO, cofounded Gunzilla with Alexander Zoll, chief technique officer and Neill Blomkamp, chief inventive officer. Korolov and Zoll are primarily based in Frankfurt, Germany, whereas Blomkamp’s base is in his movie studio in Vancouver, Canada.
Korolov and Zoll are veterans of the sport trade. They hailed from Blackwood Video games, which constructed Warface, the free-to-play first-person shooter navy recreation that amassed greater than 145 million gamers and over $1 billion in lifetime income. Whereas engaged on Warface, they proposed a solution to construct a Web3 recreation, but it surely didn’t get authorised. In order that they left to start out their very own firm, Gunzilla.
“They needed to provide gamers true asset possession and a peer-to-peer market, and that was even earlier than they discovered blockchain know-how as the easiest way to perform that,” Agranat mentioned. “They merely had the need to provide avid gamers a greater expertise.”
The corporate has now constructed as much as 420 staff. Gunzilla raised $46 million in 2022 and $30 million extra in 2024, with a complete of $76 million raised to this point. And it so occurs they selected to construct the sport on the Avalanche blockchain.
“Gunzilla is on the forefront of a gaming revolution the place folks notice that blockchain isn’t inherently good or dangerous. It’s the way you make the most of blockchain that issues. Individuals will begin demanding asset possession from different video games as effectively as a result of it simply is sensible,” Agranat mentioned. “If I spend cash on one thing and I purchase a beauty merchandise, I ought to have the ability to personal it. And meaning I ought to have the ability to reward it to a pal. I ought to have the ability to mortgage it out to a pal for per week. I ought to have the ability to promote it on a market and purchase one thing else that I would like. So that’s our focus. It’s not about Web2 versus Web3. It’s not about being the very best Web3 recreation. It’s about being an excellent recreation and giving folks the absolute best expertise.”
Agranat feels blockchain is at its early phases, like the net when it was younger. Again then, folks didn’t know why they wanted to personal websites. However those that did constructed the know-how to do it and lots of grew to become massive corporations. Finally the know-how turns into commonplace and fades away, to get replaced by different improvements.
“One in all my favourite analogies to say, ‘No person walks throughout Instances Sq. and factors within the pavement and says, I ponder what fiber optic cable is below my toes and what its velocity is.’ No person ever does that. However folks say this recreation has blockchain and it’s dangerous. It shouldn’t matter. So long as it’s within the background and the person does must work together with it immediately, which is our core thesis, then it doesn’t matter so long as you’re doing the proper issues for the gamer and the gamer has an excellent expertise. That’s all that issues.”
The Recreation Informer deal
Agranat mentioned that the Korolov and Zoll had been massive followers of Recreation Informer, they usually had been shocked when GameStop determined to close down Recreation Informer in August 2024 after 33 years of publication as a gamer’s journal and site. Final week, Gunzilla introduced it had acquired Recreation Informer and resurrected it as a brand new publication, with the entire unique employees returning.
However Recreation Informer will not be a part of the Web3 ecosystem. Agranat mentioned it’s a utterly separate, standalone firm with full journalistic autonomy and independence. It’s going to have a separate administration workforce actually has nothing to do with the primary firm, he mentioned.