Gala Games: How does GALA stand out as blockchain games experience a resurgence?
After a long period of silence, GameFi has returned to people's attention, with major blockchain games stirring with activity, leading to a small surge in the GameFi sector. Among them, Gala Games is leading the charge; can $Gala become a value investment target in GameFi?Original: 《Gala Games: 链游焕发第二春，GALA 如何脱颖而出？》
Author: @EdisonHuu, @GryphsisAcademy
Introduction:
The impressive performance of the Bigtime token after its launch has attracted market attention, with various blockchain games stirring with activity, and the GameFi sector experiencing a small surge. After a long period of silence, GameFi has returned to the public eye. Among them, Gala Games has led the charge, rising from a temporary low of $0.012 on October 19 to a current price of $0.025 at the time of writing, with a cumulative increase of over 100%. What accounts for the strength of $Gala? With the market stabilizing and altcoins showing signs of a bottom, can $Gala become a value investment target in GameFi? This article will analyze these questions.
1. Project Summary
1.1 Introduction to Gala Games
Gala Games is a blockchain game development company founded in 2018, aiming to build a decentralized gaming ecosystem. Gala Games serves both as a game development platform and a game aggregation platform.
As of now, although some games are still in development, the Gala Games official website has confirmed the launch of 18 games, covering various genres including role-playing, simulation, card games, tower defense, and shooting. In addition to the popular Spider Tanks that exploded in the blockchain gaming circle this year, Gala Games has also collaborated with the traditional gaming platform Epic to launch a battle royale game similar to PUBG called GRIT.
1.2 How Gala Games Operates and Node System Analysis
Gala has established dedicated network nodes to maintain and ensure system security. The node system will provide decentralized computing power support, transaction verification, and storage services for the gaming ecosystem. The entire gaming ecosystem operates on a distributed node network rather than on centralized servers controlled by a single entity. Gala's founder nodes will power the operation of the Gala ecosystem. In Gala Games' decentralized node network, node users can vote through consensus to decide which games can be launched on the Gala Games platform, and all major community decisions are determined by node votes.
Gala Node Operation Diagram
2. Project Details
2.1 Team
Gala Games' co-founder and CEO Eric Schiermeyer and game chairman John Osvald both hail from Zynga. Eric previously served as CEO of Intermix Media, the company behind Myspace, and was also a co-founder and creative director at Zynga. Like Eric, John has spent most of his career in the gaming industry at Zynga. Zynga, founded in 2007, is a social gaming service provider and a global leader in interactive entertainment, with a wide global influence across more than 175 countries and regions, boasting a diverse portfolio of popular game franchises, with over 20.7 billion downloads on mobile devices. The FarmVille series and Zynga Poker are among Zynga's most popular works.
FarmVille Series Works
Warren Marshall and Craig Matchett are engaged in 3D design work for games. Warren is a co-founder and art director at Gala, having previously worked at Epic Games and participated in the development of Fortnite. As for Craig, given his exceptional achievements in 3D design, Gala officially published a separate post to announce his joining. Many are familiar with the Dead Space series and the Battlefield series, both of which Craig contributed to designing. His work reflects a natural sensitivity to shape and color, as well as an obsession with research and discovery; he is an artist in the 3D field.
A Showcase of Craig's Masterpieces
Gala's blockchain director is Jason Brinks. On social media, particularly Twitter, Jason has been a spokesperson for Gala, often engaging with those interested in Gala about everything related to it. Most of Gala's AMAs are hosted by Jason. Jason previously worked at the United Nations, and his main motivation for joining GALA was the potential for gaming to help lift people in developing countries out of poverty. He has seen the corruption in these international organizations and hopes that decentralized self-made protocols will eventually replace it.
Jason's Twitter Account Homepage
2.2 Financing Situation
Gala has not conducted an ICO or any form of financing; all funds for establishing Gala were provided by the founders. Therefore, we can speculate that the establishment of Gala Games received strong support from Zynga. Additionally, the author personally believes that, from a results-oriented perspective, the sale of founder nodes is essentially a form of disguised financing. Gala has specifically emphasized in a post that "founder nodes are not investments, and becoming a founder node should not come with expectations of profit or returns," perhaps out of necessity due to the stringent regulatory policies of the U.S. government.
2.3 Overview of the Gala Ecosystem
Gala is an open platform that, in addition to games, has expanded into Gala Film and Gala Music. The future Gala ecosystem will be integrated into Gala's own Project GYRI blockchain. Furthermore, Gala has partnered with Unity to create the Gala Metaverse VOXverse. Below are some of the more popular games in Gala's main gaming sector.
Town Star is a farm simulation game developed by the Gala team itself and is the first game of Gala Games. The gameplay perfectly inherits the classic FarmVille series by Zynga. Players need to use funds for crop planting and factory construction, balancing consumption and economy, and earn rewards by climbing the game leaderboard. Additionally, players can purchase NFTs to speed up production in their farms, similar to in-game purchases.
Spider Tanks is a PVP competitive game played on PC, where players need to purchase NFT game equipment and engage in team PVP competitions with other players on the game map to earn resources. This game was developed by a Dutch game studio called Gamedia and is the first game launched on the GYRI project.
Mirandus is a fantasy role-playing RPG game where players have complete control and freedom. In the game, players have absolute freedom of choice; they can venture into the wilderness alone, battle monsters in the depths of forests and dungeons, join one of the kingdoms, serve as knights in their courts, or establish shops in one of the five great cities. Ownership of in-game assets is a core mechanism, and although the game has not yet launched, player anticipation is high.
- GRIT
GRIT launched on June 6, 2022, on the Epic platform, becoming the first Web3 game to launch on a traditional gaming platform, featuring a battle royale mechanism similar to PUBG, set in the Wild West theme. The game boasts high production quality and excellent detail, allowing players to purchase weapons in the NFT marketplace.
- Gala Music and Gala Film
Gala has brought movies and music to the blockchain and signed many artists, such as Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson for Gala Film and Snoop Dogg for Gala Music. Players can purchase NFTs for movies or music albums and earn rewards while watching movies or listening to music, "Watch to earn" or "Listen to earn."
In June of last year, Gala Games collaborated with Unity Technologies to develop the "VOXverse" 3D metaverse project. VOXverse will integrate all high-quality projects within the Gala ecosystem, including games, music, and movies, centered around the NFT-related digital avatars known as the "VOX Collectible Series." Every player in the game will have a VOX collectible avatar, which they will use as their virtual appearance.
3. Gala Operations
3.1 Historical Major Events and Price K-Line Chart
First, let's take a look at the major events of Gala since its establishment.
|------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 2019-2020 | The Gala team completed early project preparation and planning, including the production and release of the hit game Town Star and Mirandus. | | 2020.9 | Gala token began trading. | | 2021.3.22 | The Wall Street Journal published an article about Gala Games. | | 2021.3.22 | Gala Games announced sponsorship of Mazer gaming. | | 2021.3.27 | Strategic cooperation was reached with PAC Global. PAC Global is a network built using cutting-edge blockchain technology, employing proof of stake and deterministic master nodes. This cooperation laid a solid foundation for the secure and efficient operation of Gala's nodes. | | 2021.3.31 | Gala established a partnership with Polygon. | | 2021.7.10 | Node voting passed, and Spider Tanks officially joined Gala Games. | | 2021.8.5 | Gala token successfully bridged to the BSC chain using the cross-chain bridge P.Network. | | 2021.8.10 | VOX NFT sale. | | 2021.9.4 | Spider Tanks began internal testing. | | 2021.9.13 | Gala token was listed on Binance. | | 2021.9.18 | The P2E reward token Town Coin for Town Star was launched, officially starting Gala's play-to-earn journey. | | 2021.10.7 | Announced cooperation with Wemade Tree to jointly promote the globalization of blockchain games. (The MIR series games launched on Wemix are representative works of Wemade.) | | 2021.11.6 | Town Star nodes launched, functioning similarly to founder nodes. | | 2021.11.12 | Official announcement that Mirandus VOX will launch on December 6. | | 2021.12.12 | Three new games launched on the Gala platform, including the business simulation game Legacy, the multiplayer survival game The Walking Dead: Empires, and the AAA first-person design game LAST EXPDITION. | | 2022.2 | Gala Music officially launched, expanding the Gala ecosystem from games to the world, and officially announced a collaboration with renowned rapper Snoop Dogg to deploy his latest album (B.O.D.R) on the blockchain, with tracks sold as NFTs. | | 2022.5 | Announced the upcoming release of Gala's own blockchain Project GYRI, which will integrate the future Gala ecosystem. | | 2022.6.6 | Gala announced a collaboration with Epic Games, with Epic's store officially announcing the launch of the Web3 battle royale game GRIT. This historic collaboration marked the beginning of Web3 games entering the mainstream, changing the global gaming landscape. | | 2022.6.6 | Gala Film officially launched. | | 2022.11.4 | Hackers discovered a configuration error in the P.Network cross-chain bridge and launched an attack, generating unlimited pGala on BSC and arbitraging on exchanges. This incident caused Gala's maximum drop of 30% on that day. Although subsequent compensation was provided to affected users, it created significant FUD in the community. | | 2023.1.9 | Gala announced on social media that Gala Film is collaborating with well-known actors Dwayne Johnson and Mark Wahlberg to produce two films. This tweet was later deleted for unknown reasons. | | 2023.3.31 | Established a strategic partnership with Huobi to collaborate on Web3 ecosystem construction and community building. | | 2023.5.15 | Gala token underwent a contract swap upgrade to Gala (V2). | | 2023.8.17 | Node voting passed a new governance proposal to reduce reward points for multiple node operations, encouraging decentralized node operations. | | 2023.9.4 | The Gala Games team fell into internal conflict, with founder and CEO Eric Schiermeyer and co-founder Write Thurston filing lawsuits against each other, accusing each other of "theft and dumping" and "misuse of funds," involving $Gala assets worth up to $730 million. |
3.2 Business Operation Data Analysis
Gala's business segments mainly consist of two parts—the sale of founder nodes and the sale of game NFTs. It is worth noting that Gala's official website is relatively centralized, and the data in the store is not on-chain, so we will use the official website data as the main reference for analysis. First, let's look at node sales.
Gala's official website shows that the number of active nodes has reached 44,854. Active nodes refer to founder nodes that have run for more than 6 hours daily and received Gala token rewards. The actual number of nodes is certainly higher than the active nodes. The total node cap is 50,000, and the qualification for founder nodes was initially priced at $2,000. After selling 19,000 nodes, a tiered price increase model was adopted, with prices increasing after every 100 nodes sold. Therefore, the later the purchase, the more expensive it becomes. Buyers not only have to bear the high prices but also face the issue of the return on investment period being extended due to the halving of founder node rewards every July 21. At this point, Gala has already sold over 44,000 nodes, which is undoubtedly a success in node sales.
Next is Gala's NFT sales. The official website shows that over 26,000 NFTs from Gala's primary issuance have been sold, and most important in-game NFTs are quickly snatched up. We have also created a detailed table comparing the royalty income from several of the most popular NFT series under Gala in the secondary market.
Gala has many NFT series, and those with lower trading volumes in the secondary market are not included. We can see that both the primary issuance and overall royalty income from the secondary market are quite substantial.
3.3 Community Operation Data Analysis
From a social media perspective, Gala Games currently has 466,000 followers on Twitter and about 200,000 members on its official Discord. Despite being in a bear market, whenever a tweet is posted by Gala Games or "public relations" Jason, the interaction rate in the comments is very high, and community activity in the official Discord chat group is also quite lively.
Gala Games Twitter Homepage
Gala Games Discord Chat Channel
4. $Gala Token
4.1 Token Uses
The main current uses of $Gala are: purchasing founder nodes and buying in-game NFTs. The official also states that in the future, the role of the Gala token in the ecosystem will be enhanced on Gala's Project GYRI.
Regarding nodes: the current price for founder nodes on the official website is around 5M Gala, which, based on the current market price, is approximately $100,000. After purchasing a node license, users can run the founder node on their personal computer or virtual private server without needing to stake any tokens. The maximum number of founder nodes issued is 50,000, and once purchased, they are permanent and cannot be resold on the secondary market. Currently, the number of active nodes has reached around 44,000. Purchasing a founder node with Gala is similar to mining; this node is a POS node, and half of the daily output of Gala will be distributed to founder nodes. By maintaining node operation for at least 6 hours daily, users can earn daily reward points based on Gala's official point system. The longer the operation time, the more rewards earned. In addition to the daily output of Gala, founder nodes will also receive game tokens from Gala's games (such as $Town from Town Star) and randomly allocated game NFTs as rewards. Every July 21, the daily output of Gala will be halved.
Official Node Price
4.2 Token Economic Model
Gala's maximum supply is 50 billion tokens. Before January 13 of this year, it only included daily outputs, with half of the daily output of Gala allocated to founder nodes and the other half to the "Gala Games Conservatorship," which can be understood as a community treasury fund to support the development of Gala Games projects. The daily output of Gala will be halved every July 21. It is important to note that the $Gala allocated to founder nodes daily is not directly deposited into their wallet accounts by the project party; instead, nodes need to mint based on the daily allocated amount on the official website.
Additionally, to address the issue of reduced daily rewards for founder nodes due to the halving every July, which may lower the operational enthusiasm of founder nodes, Gala introduced the PAY-BY-BURN burning mechanism on January 13 of this year. Subsequently, when purchasing and paying with Gala on the platform (excluding nodes), the Gala used for purchases will be burned, and an equal amount of Gala will be allocated to founder nodes. We know that the Gala originally used for purchases is likely to flow to the project party, whether for supporting project development or selling in the secondary market, the project party has the discretion. The PAY-BY-BURN mechanism effectively transfers the tokens that the project party should have received to the nodes, increasing node earnings.
On May 15 of this year, $Gala underwent a smart contract upgrade from the original $Gala token to the new $Gala token, known as the Gala V2 upgrade. The dashboard above accurately records the minting quantity and burning amount before and after the contract swap, as well as the daily minting quantity and burning amount since Gala began minting on September 11, 2020. It has now been 948 days since minting began, with a total minting amount of approximately 48.3 billion tokens and a total circulating supply of approximately 27.3 billion tokens, with the maximum supply still at 50 billion tokens.
Considering the economic model of $Gala, along with the burning mechanism and the annual halving of $Gala output, once a blockbuster game is developed leading to increased demand, $Gala could easily transition to a deflationary model. It was also mentioned earlier that the project party occasionally destroys tokens. For instance, on the day of the contract swap on May 15, the Gala team directly destroyed nearly 21 billion $Gala (see the image below). The reason is that although Gala officially stated that this income is used to support project development and fund the ecosystem, many community members still view it as a risk to the overall token economy. In short, Gala believes that large-scale token destruction will help alleviate holders' concerns that the Gala team might sell large amounts of their tokens, leading to a price drop.
4.3 Token Holding Address Analysis
Data Source: Etherscan, Nansen
According to the data, as of November 22, 2023, there are 18,726 holding addresses for $Gala on Ethereum. The top 10 addresses hold 42.81% of $Gala, while the top 100 holding addresses account for 73.26%. Most of the top 10 addresses are exchange addresses.
Data Source: Scopescan
Additionally, according to Scopescan data, the holding amount of $Gala in CEX accounts for 32.27% of the total, with Binance being the exchange holding the most. Binance is also the largest holding address for Gala, accounting for 21% of the total.
4.4 Capital Analysis
Binance $Gala Spot Price K-Line Chart Source: Trading View
According to Trading View data, $Gala hit a bottom on October 19 and began to rise in volume in the following market, currently priced at around $0.025, rebounding approximately 100% from the bottom. The bottom has formed a standard W bottom structure, with the neckline touching a strong support point from the previous downtrend. It is easy to see that $Gala has likely completed its bottoming process and is ready to welcome a bull market.
$Gala Contract Holding Data on Binance
According to Binance contract data, the recent long-short holding ratio, large holder holding ratio, and large holder account ratio are all significantly greater than 1, indicating that both large holders and retail investors are relatively bullish, showing a positive attitude towards the future performance of $Gala.
5. Track Analysis
5.1 Current Status of the GameFi Track
The track that Gala belongs to is the GameFi track, which is a combination of the words Game (游戏) and Finance (金融), meaning to provide economic incentives for players, allowing them to earn while playing blockchain games. The GameFi ecosystem uses cryptocurrencies, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and blockchain technology to create virtual gaming environments. Players can typically earn in-game rewards by completing tasks, competing against other players, and leveling up, and they can also transfer game assets out to trade on cryptocurrency exchanges and NFT markets.
GameFi Market Cap Source: Footprint Analytics
Gala Active User Count Source: Footprint Analytics
From the chart, we can see that although there are signs of recovery in blockchain games recently, overall, the GameFi track has remained in a sluggish state from 2022 to now. The active user count for Gala (this data is derived from the number of addresses interacting with on-chain contracts, i.e., addresses using Gala for purchases, which is certainly not accurate for the centralized Gala platform and is likely lower than the actual active users, but it is meaningful for trend judgment) has also seen a significant decline and has maintained a stable state for a long time.
If the GameFi boom in 2021 was the result of ample market funds and speculation, then the current prices of GameFi tokens are still returning to value after the bubble burst, and have stabilized at the bottom stage.
5.2 Gala's Advantages in the GameFi Track
The basic logic behind the hype in the GameFi track during the last bull market was the P2E (Play-to-Earn) mechanism, as players could earn money by playing games, attracting a large influx of people into blockchain games, which drove up token prices. Gala also "rode the wave" of the P2E mechanism, achieving a thousand-fold increase during the last bull market. Why is "rode the wave" in quotes? Because Gala's philosophy differs from that of most blockchain games; Gala does not actually focus on P2E. Take Town Star as an example: although it is free to play, achieving resource balance is quite challenging, and players can easily find themselves in a deadlock during operations. The game emphasizes player experience rather than quick profits. Gala's true vision has always been to create blockchain games that people genuinely want to play, which remains the team's unwavering original intention.
How to understand this? Gala wants people to play blockchain games not because they can earn money, but because the games are genuinely fun. While most Web3 game companies like Immutable X and Axie Infinity increasingly focus on P2E and infrastructure development, Gala Games' GRIT, Spider Tanks, and other games constantly convey their vision of "creating the blockchain games you truly want to play" through their high-quality production, interesting gameplay, and meticulous attention to detail.
Moreover, in terms of game development teams, Gala Games' team is one of the few in the blockchain gaming field composed of well-known traditional game industry developers. Aside from blockchain director Jason, most team members have worked at top game companies. Compared to other blockchain game teams, Gala's game production standards and delivery levels are significantly superior.
6. Potential Risks in Project Development
If Gala wants to develop high-quality, genuinely fun blockchain games, it must be cautious about the potentially long development cycles, which may not be conducive to increasing token demand in the short term.
Unlike other Web3 projects, Gala Games resembles a Web2 game developer, with its website, store, and other aspects leaning towards opacity and centralization.
Whether Gala can surpass projects like Immutable X that focus on underlying infrastructure development through its Project GYRI, and whether it can meet the expectations of game developers to attract more developers, remains to be seen. The construction of GYRI will have a significant impact on the Gala ecosystem.
7. Conclusion
The destruction of 21 billion $Gala to alleviate holders' concerns and the disguised allocation of funds originally belonging to the team to support node operations show that the Gala team genuinely wants to improve the project and build it in a long-term direction, prioritizing the interests of $Gala holders and the community.
Additionally, the concentration of $Gala holdings has released a massive amount of energy for price increases, completing the bottoming process and moving away from the bottom. Based on contract holding data, it is also evident that large holders have a strong bullish sentiment in the short term.
At the same time, looking back at the hit game The Beacon from Treasure Dao, GMT sneakers, and even the P2E concept, after the hype, they will ultimately end up like the current situation in GameFi, scattered and in disarray. Whether in traditional games or Web3 games that have experienced a boom, I believe that the P2E mechanism is merely a fuel for support, and truly creating a game that captivates players for the long term, like League of Legends, PUBG, or Tomb Raider and Assassin's Creed, is what can attract players to stay for a long time and ensure the stable development of game projects—this is the ultimate goal of the gaming industry.
Fun games lead to an increase in user numbers, which increases the demand for in-game items, subsequently increasing the demand for $Gala, and naturally, the token price will rise. Currently, the price of $Gala has rebounded from the bottom, and we have emerged from the bear market. If you are optimistic about the GameFi track and can manage risks reasonably, $Gala is undoubtedly a token worth value investing in. I believe that with Gala's vision and ambition, creating genuinely fun Web3 blockbuster games and retaining users for the long term is only a matter of time.
References
Disclaimer
This report is an original work completed by student @EdisonHuu of @GryphsisAcademy under the guidance of @CryptoScott_ETH. The author is solely responsible for all content, which does not necessarily reflect the views of Gryphsis Academy, nor does it necessarily reflect the views of the organization that commissioned the report. Editing content and decisions are not influenced by readers. Please be aware that the author may hold cryptocurrencies mentioned in this report. This document is for informational reference only and should not be used as the basis for investment decisions. It is strongly recommended that you conduct your own research and consult neutral financial, tax, or legal advisors before making investment decisions. Please remember that past performance of any asset does not guarantee future returns.
