'Magic: The Gathering' creator's crypto game lands on Epic Game Store

"Magic: The Gathering" creator Richard Garfield has helped design a blockchain game, and it is launching on the Epic Game Store.

The Dungeons & Dragons-style fantasy card game Garfield created became a massive hit, fostering an ecosystem of players who for years actively bought, sold and traded the game's physical cards. Garfield is now hoping his digital card game "Brawlers" will also capture gamers' imaginations.

The player-vs-player game was co-designed by Garfield and developed by fledgling web3 gaming firm Tyranno Studios, which focuses on creating titles on the WAX blockchain. 

"Just like traditional physical card games, Brawlers allows people to purchase card sets and use them to play with others, simultaneously retaining full ownership and control over their assets to easily trade or exchange them," Garfield said in a statement. "This opens up many new opportunities for developers to build successful web3 games with living and breathing economies where each player is a full-fledged participant and avoids all the pitfalls of exploitative microtransactions."

Epic Game Store provides large conduit

While tons of veterans of the web2 gaming universe have migrated to web3 to create new titles that hold the promise of players owning and having the ability to trade their in-game assets, so far no games have yet to become mainstream. Being offered on the Epic Game Store, however, may help "Brawlers" breakthrough and achieve critical mass. As of last year, there was more than 230 million Epic Game users.

Several other web3 games have also been featured on the Epic Game Store including Mythical Games' "Blankos Block Party" and the combat game "MetalCore."

"Brawlers" includes "a limited-edition collection of NFTs" and features "cross-platform functionality via NFT bridges to Polygon, Ethereum and Binance’s BNB Chain."