Details from DappRadar show that the NFT markets expanded to top over $21 billion by the close of last year. This was more than a 20X expansion from 2020 when that figure stood at a meager $100 million. Undoubtedly, it has been an outstanding year for NFTs.
As a measure of just how popular NFTs are, OpenSea, the world’s leading marketplace, registered over $10 billion in trading volume by early November 2021, a 10X rise in slightly over three months when it crossed the $1 billion mark. The popularity of NFT further expanded, and by December 2021, for the first time in crypto’s history, NFT became the most searched term as per data from Google Trends.
There are numerous drivers at the back of this expansion. While art made a mark and artists were given a breather, the merger of NFTs with the multi-billion gaming industry is proving to be a game-changer.
Thus far, video gaming was estimated to be over $178 billion in 2021, accelerating 14.4 percent from 2020. Given the growing significance of NFTs and their immense benefits in various economic sectors, especially in gaming, the creators of Ember Sword are expertly tapping what NFTs, crypto, and blockchain are bringing to gaming.
Introducing Ember Sword
Ember Sword is a free-to-play Multiplayer Online Role-playing Game (MMORPG) game on Ethereum and running on the pioneer smart contracting platform’s sidechain—Polygon, developed by Denmark’s Bright Star Studios.
The game’s theme is based on the middle ages. Its metaverse, the Thanabus, is a vast adventurous expanse for gamers and comprises 160k plots. Players take the role of a warrior from where they can explore in the moon of Thanabus to explore, craft, and engage in battle.
Notably, unlike other MMORPG games, EmberSword is classless. Accordingly, players are not bound to any weapon type or play style. Instead, the game is about allegiance.
From the beginning, a player can choose to pledge their unwavering support and kiss the badge of any of the four nations–Solarwood, Duskeron, Edisau, and Sevrend—upfront before starting. Each nation is community-owned as a large chunk of land parcels represented as NFTs.
Empowering Players, Building a Relationship
Bright Star Studios are keen on building a beneficial relationship. Their needs are met by launching on Ethereum and integrating the community’s feedback by deploying on the low-fee but highly scalable Polygon. Because of the distribution of the secure smart contracts platform, Ember Sword is community-facing and rewarding for players who stand to earn valuable in-game items (NFTs) and cryptocurrencies.
While Ember Sword operates from Polygon and is open for all players, subsequently empowering them with in-game assets after exploring the thrill-filled Thanabus, the platform is blockchain-agnostic. As a result, depending on the community’s thoughts, the game would deploy on any other additional blockchain. This allowance is critical as the MMORPG game goes global. It will also fit what the game’s developers want to work on. Central to Ember Sword is a player-driven digital universe where they are in control of proceeding through land ownership.
Within the game, all cosmetic items are tokenized and exist as scarce—and therefore valuable—NFT collectibles. Players acquire these collectibles by completing game objectives instead of being sold in loot boxes. Participating in the MMORPG game is straightforward. A player needs to create characters and select a home nation before exploring the expansive Thanabus. There, they can complete quests, forage, and craft items.
At the same time, they will battle monsters and compete with other players. In addition to exploration and battles, players can also develop their skills by participating in other bits of the game like mining, fishing, woodcutting, and more. These are required to grow a player’s skill level for better efficiency, better enhancements, and better abilities to cast. Still, since it is player-facing and gamers decide what to do, they are free to do whatever they feel like doing.
Ember Sword’s Land is on High Demand
The Ember Sword game is scheduled to launch in early 2022. Meanwhile, it has garnered a massive following in social media circles. The game has more than 100k followers across social media circles and is further tempered by a strong advisory board.
In the first stage of the game’s land sale, EmberSword ended up accumulating over $1.5 million from Solarwood’s land buyers, who scrambled and applied for available slots in less than an hour.
The demand for existing land was over the roof. Over $203 million of USDC were pledged by more than 35k applicants who wanted to purchase land.
Besides the overwhelming success in their land sale, the team raised $2 million from investors, including CoinGecko Ventures, Delphi Digital, and Animoca Brands, in 2021. Reading from the game’s rave reviews, investors are aware that Ember Sword is far more than just a game. Instead, by seeking to empower players and forwarding a free-to-play model, the project fosters the growth of a community—and numbers don’t lie, reading from the over 100k followers across different interaction channels.
Still, it should be noted that Bright Star Studios’ design isn’t to neither favor landowners nor endow them with play-to-earn advantages over the have-nots. Therefore, any player, even those who seek not to own land, can still participate for fun. For those who want to purchase land, each is available as regular plots, settlements, towns, and cities with varying commercial activity and resources. Ember Sword will distribute 50 percent of their revenue to landowners weighted based on the amount of value the player generates on and around the land they own, ensuring equitable distribution of resources and equity in the community.
Ember Sword Team
Bright Star Studios team members are friends, passionate about gaming. Based on their ambition of developing a free-to-play, Ethereum-leveraging MMORPG game, they have grown to become one of the most revered gaming studios in the world.
- Mark Laursen is the founder and CEO
- Joris Huijbregts from the Netherlands is the co-founder and CTO
- Loren Roosendaal is the co-founder and executive producer
- Sven Arnarsson the COO
The team continues to onboard talented marketers, designers, software developers, and more as they expand and develop the game.
Ember Sword advisors include:
- Sage Durain
- Randy Breen
- Robert Jønsson
- Jens Hilgers–the Co-Founder and Chairman of G2 ESports and the founder of Bayes ESports.
- Andreas Thorstensson –the CEO of GOALs. He was also the former founder of SK Gaming—a platform that has been creating eSports legends since 1997.
Ember Sword Catalysts
- Bright Star Studios is a team of experienced developers, designers, developers, and gaming experts with a proven track record. A single glance of the founder’s experience, for instance, gives weight to the project. At the same time, they are advised by industry titans, a net positive for Ember Sword.
- Ember Sword is a free-to-play game timely tapping on the NFTs when the industry’s valuation is snowballing. NFTs are expected to be a permanent fixture in gaming that’s rapidly adapting to be player-facing.
- Already, Ember Sword has raised $2 million from CoinGecko Venture and, most importantly, Animoca Brands that’s behind a string of other successful metaverses, NFTs, and blockchain games. The participation from Animoca Brands is another massive boost of confidence.
- Unlike other asset distribution means, Ember Sword’s land purchasers had to apply to acquire land. That it was over-subscribed and land hived out from only one nation, Solarwood, sold out in less than an hour is an indicator of how the investment community ranks the project.
- There are over 35k purchasers of land who want to participate in the next round of land purchase using the USDC stablecoin. Their pledges exceeded over $200 million, according to the latest data. Investors who are lucky to have their application accepted can return decent ROI from their NFTs purchase. Even so, the team has introduced limited-edition community badges for those who rank high enough but fall short of owning land.
- The Ember Sword development team is determined to grow its community and empower its players. It is why the game is free-to-play and deploying from Ethereum but running on Polygon—an Ethereum’s sidechain with relatively low trading fees and is highly scalable.
- The game’s developers have expressed their desire to launch their in-game currency, EMBER, complying with the ERC-20 standard. The inclusion of this token and the availability of on-demand land NFTs offer diversification entries for investors.
- Ember Sword continues to strike valuable partnerships. They recently joined hands with Immutable X—an Ethereum layer-2 focused on scaling NFTs—and earlier Token Trove—a digital collectible marketplace.