David Ayer, who wrote the screenplays for well-known Hollywood franchises “The Fast and the Furious” and “Suicide Squad,” has started a new endeavor: a Web3 racing game called Lollipop that aims to blend episodic streaming, gaming, and professional sports. Lollipop announced their entrance into Web3 with a Tweet:
According to a statement from Feature.io, the company Ayer has partnered with to create the game, Lollipop will be a “hybrid media experience” that will appeal to a new generation of content consumers. The game will use NFTs, though stakeholders distanced themselves from the term, choosing to refer to its in-game property as “digital collectibles” instead.
While details about Lollipop are scant — including the eventual release date — Feature.io and Ayer have chosen to run the game on the Polygon blockchain. Web3 games frequently run on the L2 Ethereum scaling solution as it offers fast speeds and low transaction costs, which are good for the many micro-transactions a game brings.
One thing we know for certain: Lollipop digital collectibles will have a rarity component.
“Rarity traits are definitely incorporated,” Feature.io CEO Steven Ilous told Rarity Sniper, “providing audiences with deep utility that has never been seen before in entertainment and the Web3 space. [We are] excited for people to experience this global franchise.“
Ilous said that after he came up with concept of Lollipop, he pitched it to Ayer, who got it immediately. Ayer, reportedly, is a fan of Web3 technology. Chris Long, the producer of an Ayer-directed film, is also attached to the project. Both men are executives at the production company Cedar Park Studios.
Meet the Company Behind ‘Lollipop’: Feature.io
Feature.io, the Los Angeles-based company behind Lollipop, was founded on March 7th, 2021 by Steven Ilous. It bills itself as “next-generation” entertainment studio and technology platform, exploring the future of content and pushing the boundaries on what is possible. To date, it has worked on six projects, the two most notable being:
- The Degen Trilogy with Coinbase
- Love, Death + Robots with Netflix
One of its six projects is a home-grown licensing platform that allows digital collectibles enthusiasts to buy and sell the IP rights to various collectibles. Coinbase used this proprietary technology to license the Apes for its “The Degen Trilogy” film series.
It has two seeds investors listed on Crunchbase: Polygon and Sterling, VC. Polygon, as you might remember, is the blockchain of choice for Lollipop, one of Feature.io’s six projects. Ryan Wyatt, the President of Polygon Labs, said Lollipop is “truly pioneering” and that Feature.io is spearheading the future of storytelling.
Web3 Games Raised $739M in Q1 of 2023
Although the crypto market has slumped over the past year, blockchain gaming has continued to roll, bringing in $739 million in investment during Q1 of 2023 according to Web3 statistics hub DappRadar. The key takeaways from the report are:
- $434 million or 60% of the total investment amount was raised in March
- Game and metaverse companies led the charge, raising $214 million in March
- “Worldwide Asset eXchange” or WAX remained the No. 1 blockchain for games
In a surprise move, Polygon became the No. 2 blockchain for games, surpassing Hive, which declined in user activity in Q1. As covered in the first section of this article, game developers like Polygon for its speed and low transaction costs. More people are starting to adopt Polygon as their gaming infrastructure of choice.
In addition, trading volume in virtual worlds surged in March of Q1, reaching heights not seen since Q2 in 2022. Users bought over 67,000 pieces of virtual land in March, more than half the total for the entire quarter. While the metaverse seems like a new concept, it has existed for decades in the form of games like Second Life. These statistics bode well for David Ayer and Lollipop as they seek to enter a Web3 gaming industry on the rise.
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