Zynga Co-Founder Gets into Blockchain Gaming with Gala Network
Eric Schiermeyer, the founder and CEO of Blockchain Game Partners is getting into blockchain gaming. His team is building the Gala Network for games to utilize blockchain features.

Schiermeyer is also a Co-founder of Zynga, a social game developer that averaged around 70 million users last year. Similarly to other blockchain gaming startups, Schiermeyer believes blockchain can provide true ownership of assets. His team has been working on this for about 18 months.

Quoted from Schiermeyer, “It’s going to be a revolutionary experience for people. Unlike any other experience I’ve ever seen, when you spend money here, you actually get something, something that you can keep, and maybe even give away or give some to somebody else. You can’t do that in traditional free-to-play games right now. And people just accept that. I think that once people realize that you don’t have to accept that situation, and you can actually own your own items, then people aren’t going to play those other games anymore.”

Schiermeyer has joined forces with Mike McCarthy, previously the Creative Director on FarmVille 2, one of Zynga’s more popular games.

Townstar

Townstar is one of the titles that will be using the Gala Network. With Townstar, players own the items they buy or create and transactions are secure. There will also be a marketplace where players can trade directly with each other with fraud. Items in-game will have limited supply as well similar to non-fungible tokens(NFTs).

Townstar will have gameplay similar to FarmVille where players can run their own farm and eventually a town. There will be weekly contests with prizes given out to players who made the most progress. Developers are adding upgradable hero characters that are on the blockchain as well.

“Just like networked games and social games I believe that blockchain games are the next evolution in gaming,” Schiermeyer said. “Pretty soon, nobody will play a game that is a black hole of time and money, if they have good alternatives that allow the player to retain ownership of their time and money.”

Fundraising

Currently, the team comprises of about 10 people working on the games and another 15 working on Gala Network. Schiermeyer has funded it so far and the company expects to raise a round of investment soon.

Currency

The premium currency in-game is going to be tokenized, where the price doesn’t change. Players will be able to earn and sell the currency when they want. The game will also have 1,000 farm bots that can mine a token.

Players can construct a farm bot by gathering the parts required from buying loot boxes. Alternatively, they can just buy a farm bot preassembled at a more expensive price. The currency mined can be sold to other players.

In the future, the tokens will be transferable between games instead of transferring items like a sword.

“If players want to move their items from one game to another, then they can sell them in this game and then buy things in another one,” Schiermeyer said. “The thing where it gets really fun, though, is, do a kind of licensing deal. Maybe I take a sword in one game, and it boosts or modifies a card in a collectible card game. It’s like a cross-promotion.”

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