UAE-based Fenix Games has raised a US$150 million investment led by Phoenix Group, Cyphe Capital and other investors. Founded in 2022, Fenix Games plans to change the way blockchain-based games are deployed in order to enable developers to enter the market and publish their games in an easier way.
The company seeks to use the funds to invest and acquire blockchain-based games, and to deploy new games in the future. It also aims to bring together, integrate and manage several game development studios to become an important player in the blockchain gaming market that is currently evolving and established, as the company will create specific platforms such as Sony or Microsoft on game consoles or Android and Apple on phones.
The idea of Fenix Games is to create a platform that will play the role of a publisher in bringing blockchain games to market. It plans to acquire, monetize, and deploy both current and blockchain games in the future.
According to the new company, there will be consolidation in the blockchain gaming industry, and huge companies will emerge by acquiring or investing in promising startups. To put it another way, Fenix Games wants to be in a position where it can combine a range of companies into a single, powerful organisation with a huge portfolio, one that can survive the current slump in blockchain games.
“The market is similar to earlier [mobile gaming at the rise of free-to-play games] but it hasn’t found its Clash of Clans for blockchain games yet. So, you can think of us as like a VC fund. We’re using the VC arm to fund the next generation of games. We’re actually going to start off with a huge base of capital to invest in those studios. We’re also looking to use our balance sheet to acquire a bunch of existing games in the Web2 space to build a portfolio. And that will be the right base for our portfolio.” Chris Ko, CEO and co-founder of Fenix Games, said in an interview with GamesBeat.
More experienced gaming developers are moving into expanding into blockchain gaming, particularly in the wake of Apple’s privacy push in mobile games. But Fenix Games believe a very narrow set of games is being developed so far for blockchain platforms.
“We believe that there is a structural gap. We aim to fill this gap with a redefined publishing group that leverages some of the traditional publishing functions, but with a new function. Just like in mobile free-to-play games there was a blending of analytics and the product management function to launch, scale, and operate live services, we believe blockchain gaming will see a similar ‘blending’ of functions.” Ko added
Fenix Games seeks to integrate the expertise of its staff in product management and game development while incorporating practices and competencies from the financial services industry, particularly asset management. The company calls for the fusion of these disciplines as gaming market economies. Simply put, that will develop a market for a game or games in order to increase the number of potential players for a game. Scaling the community before the game launches will be a fundamental function of the game market economics.
Fenix Games will emphasise on fusing the economies of the game market and live operations to offer publishing services to all game models, including premium, free-to-play, and blockchain gaming across all platforms.
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