Mobile game maker Aeria Canada Studio to migrate products to web3: Exclusive

Aeria Canada Studio has partnered with Ready Games to migrate its most popular mobile titles to web3.

The games will be revamped to include NFTs and decked out with Ready Games' web3 infrastructure before being re-released.

First up is Rescue Robots: Sniper Survival, which has over 5 million downloads on Google’s app store. Beta testing is expected to start on Dec. 1 and a full global release is slated for January.

This will create a secondary marketplace for trading game assets while allowing players to pursue different upgrade paths as they make their way through Rescue Robots, according to a statement from Ready Games.

“We are removing the barriers for mainstream game companies to migrate from web2 gaming economies into web3 gaming economies and reach that mainstream game player who otherwise may have never tried a web3 game where they're at right now, which is primarily on the mobile phone,” said David S. Bennahum, CEO of Ready Games.

Web2 vs. web3

Several of the biggest gaming companies in the US remain wary of web3, particularly the use of NFTs in games. Microsoft’s gaming CEO Phil Spencer has said he doesn’t like them, as has the CEO of Valve. Microsoft’s subsidiary Mojang Studios has banned them from Minecraft servers. More recently, Rockstar Games also banned NFTs on Grand Theft Auto servers.

But Bennahum thinks there are some dimensions of web3 that are "super exciting" for web2 gamers.

“Number one, they get to become the legal owner of the asset they buy because it's backed by an actual contract on-chain," he said. "Number two, where game publishers allow it to happen, they can migrate that asset from one game to another, equip it in multiple games, creating even more value for that asset.”

“Number three, they become the owner of all their game data and their profile and, over time, can become economically rewarded for having committed to playing games for many years,” he added.

Ready Games itself is a recent convert. In May, it raised $3 million in token sales to fund its web3 pivot. Bitkraft Ventures, Hashed, Mapleblock Capital, Mulana Capital and Polygon were among the investors.