Magic Eden, the leading Solana NFT marketplace has created a Web3 gaming investment arm. Magic Ventures is looking to make strategic investments in Web3 and onboard developers via Magic Eden’s infrastructure.
Magic Eden is the largest NFT marketplace within the Solana eco-system. Recently raised a war chest of funds to help the young startup become a crypto unicorn.
We now know how the company is spending some of its cash: It has created a gaming-centric investment division.
Today, Magic Ventures was launched by the company. This venture investment arm will be primarily focused on gaming. Tony Zhao, formerly of Chinese gaming giant Tencent, has been appointed as the company’s new head of gaming investment.
Zhao stated to Decrypt Magic Ventures will invest in NFT-powered video game developers and be strategic rather than making investments expecting a return.
Zhao stated that they aren’t thinking about returns and will never think about them. It’s only to align our partnership together. We want to be these developers’ go-to partner.”
Magic Ventures will sign game developers. This ecosystem offers both a launchpad to sell new NFTs and a secondary marketplace to continue sales. The -based marketplace in Solana currently holds 90% or more share of Solana’s total NFT market. Zhao stated that Zhao’s goal is to facilitate the entry of game developers into the Web3 ecosystem.
He explained that developers can concentrate on the one thing they are good at, which is building great games. We’ll assist them in taking care of all Web3 elements as well as helping them get onboard to the ecosystem.
Zhao stated that Magic Ventures had already made investments, with more in the pipeline. However, he would not reveal which startups or projects it had invested in.
He said that there is no fixed dollar amount that can be invested in projects, and that the average investment size is “pretty low” due to the strategic nature of the investments.
He said, “We are not here to finance the entire development of games.” “Our value-add doesn’t consist of capital–it is all of these infrastructure solutions, and an NFT experience like no other in the market.”
Game developers meet Web3
Magic Eden’s Eden Games division announced, along with the venture arm that it had reached agreements with several Solana game makers, including Aurory and Mini Royale : Nations. These agreements will allow each Solana game to have its own NFT marketplace. Players will be able buy and sell NFTs in each game, without having to visit an external marketplace.
It is designed to make it easy for players to use, especially for those who don’t know how to manage a crypto wallet or self-custody assets. Zhao stated that developers are provided with the infrastructure so they don’t need to create integrations.
NFTs are a blockchain token that represents ownership of an item such as artwork, collectibles and interactive video games. NFTs are used in the gaming industry to represent unique weapon designs, avatars, and virtual land plots.
Magic Eden, a crypto unicorn valued at over $1 billion, recently achieved this status. Nine months after its founding, the firm raised $130million at a valuation of $1.6 billion.
NFT Marketplace plans to support other blockchain platforms beyond Solana in the future, but no specific chains have been revealed.
Magic Eden enters NFT competition
Magic Eden’s increased focus in Web3 gaming places it directly in competition with Fractal. Fractal is a gaming-centric Solana NFT marketplace founded by Justin Kan, co-founder of Twitch video game streaming platform.
Fractal focuses only on interactive gaming assets. Magic Eden supports profile photos and other types NFT assets.
Zhao stated that while both Magic Eden (and Fractal) are focused on growing the Web3 gaming market, he believes Magic Eden offers a more complete suite of solutions to launch and sustain Solana-based games. He also suggested that the results support his confidence.
“Both of our goals are to grow the ecosystem. We show data to game developers. He said that it was up to the developers to choose who they would like to partner with.” “The results have shown developers that they have good reasons to partner with us over Fractal,” he said.
