Limit Break, a company focused on blockchain games, announced that it has raised $200 million from venture capitalists based on a concept called “free-to-own” Web3 gaming. Buckley Ventures, Standard Crypto, and Paradigm Ventures led the two funding rounds. Coinbase and FTX also participated.
Gabriel Leydon and Halbert Nakagawa, pioneers of the “free-to-play” mobile gaming model, head the company. They are responsible for founding Machine Zone, which created popular mobile gaming titles Game of War and Mobile Strike. Leydon has been active on NFT Twitter of late, criticizing the approaches of previous companies while touting his own.
Through a press release, Leydon said that “free-to-play gaming is ending and Limit Break is coming to replace it.” The company is focused on bringing the gaming industry into a new era and comes equipped with the “perfect partners, perfect investors, and perfect team.”
Limit Break, which draws its name from the legendary RPG series Final Fantasy, has released one NFT collection to date called DigiDaigaku. According to Limit Break official Twitter channels, the team stealth-minted the collection, a term that means they held the NFT drop without a formal announcement. In addition, NFT collectors could have minted the NFTs for free.
Today, the lowest priced DigiDaigaku NFT stands at $21,084 or 13.5 ETH, though the floor price of the collection has been declining since reaching a high of 15 ETH. According to Leydon, the Limit Break team will hold an airdrop this Friday for holders of NFTs in the collection.
“Free-to-own” is a relatively new concept that seeks to reward early NFT collectors for participating in the development of the game, rather than treating them like customers. Teams create the basis for games on free mints or airdrops, with other ways of making money introduced later.
Could Limit Break spark a new meta in the NFT world?
One pattern many NFT investors is the golden goose of the meta: patterns in the NFT world that start with one project and lead to many copycats. One example most everyone remembers is the Loot: For Adventurers meta, where the Dom-created collection sparked several spin-off projects that quickly excited the NFT community and depleted it of funds.
Another such meta came with the popular World of Women project. After that project launched in the fall of 2021, many NFT collections featuring only women followed, including Crypto.Chicks and Boss Beauties.
Then there was the free mint meta after the crypto market prices fell sharply in April. Perhaps realizing that very few people were willing to pay money to mint a speculative NFT project, teams created projects that were given away for free, with the only way teams could make money being off royalties. The most popular of those projects, GoblinTown.wtf, still has a high ETH floor compared to many others.
DigiDaigaku seems like it could spark a new meta, assuming that it will be easy for other teams to copy. The major issue may be money. Because Limit Break already has a vault of $200 million to draw from, other teams will likely be at a disadvantage, as VC money in the NFT space is still relatively new. Here at Rarity Sniper, we’ll be keeping a close eye on the story for any further developments.