Blockchain Firm Metatheory Raises $24 Million to Develop DuskBreakers Game

Web3 gaming company Metatheory recently raised $24 million during a Series A funding round led by venture capital firm Andreesen Horowitz. Among the participants of the funding round includes Pantera Capital, FTX Ventures, and Dragonfly Capital. Twitch co-founder Kevin Lin founded metatheory, and it is presently developing its flagship project titled DuskBreakers.

“After stepping away from Twitch to explore what’s next in the industry, I truly believe blockchain will open the door to even more possibilities and have a major impact in the gaming, storytelling, and community building space,” explained Lin, who also serves as the company’s CEO.

To help build his budding company, Lin also employed some of his colleagues and connections from Twitch. Metatheory CTO JT Gleason, for instance, was the former developer relations executive and engineer at Twitch. Meanwhile, the company’s VP of Community and Marketing Jason Maestas was a former member of the Influencer Marketing team at Twitch. Bernie Su and Jen Enfield-Kane, Content Chief and Narrative Designer at Metatheory, respectively, previously worked on the interactive Twitch show Artificial Next.

What sets Metatheory apart from other blockchain games is that it has its own game launcher as opposed to only being playable through a web browser. Players, however, can still choose to play the company’s DuskBreakers NFT game on either platform. While the main play-and-earn DuskBreakers game is still in development, the company has since released two minigames that are connected to its overall lore.

Among the minigames is “The Recruit Simulator” which was launched in December allowing users an opportunity to “play-to-mint” — essentially encouraging users to play in order to earn a DuskBreaker genesis NFT. The DuskBreakers NFT Collection features 10,000 tokens with a floor price of 0.22 ETH (around $440) each. But of the total number, only nine NFTs are canonically in line with the game’s main storyline.

It is expected, however, that the DuskBreakers lore will most likely expand beyond the current collection and minigames that have been released. The main blockchain game is set to be released within the third quarter of this year, but Metatheory is currently making significant moves to further the game’s reach. The company has been found to be on the hunt for a comic artist in its effort to release an online graphic novel of the game. A second DuskBreakers NFT collection has also been planned alongside 3D profile picture avatars, merch, and events down the line.

Source: Decrypt