Gods Unchained is by far one of the most successful P2E web3 games in the market right now. The NFT-based card strategy game is built on Immutable.
It was launched in 2018, and since then, over $80 million worth of cards have already been traded, with hundreds of thousands of users participating. But the Gods Unchained story is one of humble beginnings.
We built @GodsUnchained with less than $5,000 and we’ll never stop building pic.twitter.com/kp77QNVypS
— Immutable 🅧 – $IMX (@Immutable) October 25, 2022
According to co-founder James Ferguson, Gods Unchained was completely bootstrapped right from the start. In fact, James and his brother Robbie, the other co-founder of the NFT card game, started developing Gods Unchained with less than $5000.
The duo would then reinvest all their revenues into the P2E game and never needed any outside funding to make it the global P2E icon it has become in recent months.
How Gods Unchained Rose to Fame?
James Ferguson attributes the meteoric rise of Gods Unchained to a strong work ethic. He argues that when you have a team of dedicated individuals who fully understand every aspect of the product you are building, it becomes much easier to scale and grow. He also notes that mainstreaming proper communication is a great advantage.
Nonetheless, there is more to the rise of Gods Unchained than that. For starters, the game is neatly built. It combines the popularity of card trading games, which have been there since the 90s, with an epic storyline and superb graphics.
Also, Gods Unchained launched at a time when interest in play to earn gaming was heating up. 2018 was the peak year for P2E.
Games like Axie Infinity were averaging millions of users per month at the time. There was also this excitement and feel-good factor around blockchain games. It was, therefore, much easier to sell and market Gods Unchained under such favorable conditions.
Gods Unchained: The Milestones Thus Far
In less than four years, Gods Unchained has moved from just an idea to a fully functioning NFT game with a sizable user base.
For starters, the game has managed to attract around 84,000 members on its Discord channel. This is a sizeable number relative to other blockchain-based NFT games. As for Twitter, Gods Unchained has a little over 100,000 followers.
But social media engagement and reach are just a small part of what defines success for any project. For P2E games, looking at the active number of users is seen as the perfect litmus test. Gods Unchained does quite well in this metric too.
Active Players and Other Stats
According to this article, the NFT card game has, on average, 80,000 active weekly users. There are also around half a million registered players. Please note that this information was released in January 2022.
Although P2E gaming was sliding a bit from its peak at the time due to the crypto market downturn, it was still performing very well. However, owing to growing headwinds in the market right now, it is possible that the number of active weekly players for Gods Unchained has dropped.
Nonetheless, NFT sales have ramped up significantly. According to an analysis by CryptoSlam, total NFT sales for Gods Unchained assets reached $16 million in October. This is the highest monthly sale in the history of the game.
The CryptoSlam data also shows that lifetime NFT sales have now surpassed $82 million. It is also worth noting that the game just wrapped up its first season.
The Immutable X Connection
As noted above, Gods Unchained is built to run on the Immutable X platform. This is a zero-gas fee blockchain designed to power the web3 revolution. The founders of Gods Unchained are also behind this blockchain.
So far, it has attracted several games. While Gods Unchained, Guild of Guardians, and Illuvium are some well-known brands, Immutable has forged many gaming partnerships with developers.
But that’s not all. Immutable X also positions itself as a major driver of NFT trading. According to CryptoSlam, the platform is the 8th most successful chain in terms of lifetime NFT sales.
So far, IMX has sold around $275 million worth of NFTs. Additionally, Immutable X is also a unicorn in the crypto industry. In March this year, the company raised around $200 million in funding at a valuation of around $2.5 billion.
Gods Unchained P2E: What Does the Future Look Like?
The next logical phase for Gods Unchained P2E right now is to transition into season 2. The first season has ended with a large degree of success, even though the broader P2E market has slowed a bit.
It is possible that the crypto winter will continue well until the end of the year. However, Gods Unchained has demonstrated that it has built a versatile enough game to survive the bear market.
With crypto expected to rebound in 2023, the P2E game may still see a rapid expansion of its user base.
