Horizon Blockchain Games, the Web3 wallet, infrastructure, and gaming company that co-created the ERC-1155 NFT standard, today launches the Open Beta for its long-awaited, free-to-play cross-platform Web3 trading card game, Skyweaver, to over 345,000 users on the waitlist. Skyweaver has garnered one of Web3’s largest communities, with more than 3 million matches played — accounting for over 920k hours racked up in the private beta alone.
Skyweaver has garnered $13.3m in funding from a host of Web3’s most prominent VCs, including Coinbase, Initialized Capital, BITKRAFT, ConsenSys, and Polychain. Thanks to this immense support, and with statistics achieved to date, Skyweaver holds the potential to be the first Web3 game to break into the Web2 mass gaming market.
Skyweaver has been building for four years and has undergone rigorous gameplay tests via private beta for the past three.
Organic growth during this period has delivered one of the largest user bases in Web3 — and even Web2 — gaming. At 99,000 members, Skyweaver’s Discord has already outmatched the reach of popular Web2 trading card contemporaries, Hearthstone and Magic: The Gathering Arena.
With over 233,000 app installs to date, Skyweaver’s passionate community continues to attract trading card game fans worldwide.
Since Skyweaver’s code-gated Soft Launch on November 25, 2021, when the economy went live on Polygon mainnet, players have clocked up over 484,000 gameplay hours across more than 1.8 million games, spending over $1.9 million via Skyweaver’s gamer-friendly marketplace. Players have been competing and winning tradable NFT cards in the Weekly Ranked leaderboards and the competitive Conquest game mode — the only mode where the ultra-rare ‘Gold’ cards can be minted through gameplay.
Skyweaver is also cited by Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit, Initialized Capital, and 776, as the game that tipped him off to the potential of Web3 gaming.
Alexis Ohanian comments: “I’ve been fortunate to be an investor in Skyweaver from the start, but most importantly, I was a fan first. It was the first game that really opened my eyes to the vast potential of play-to-earn and NFT gaming. I wrote about play-to-earn 3 years ago and the trend is even more obvious now. The future of this space will be dictated by companies like Horizon, who have been hard at work building a community and meticulously refining their product to not only appeal to Web3 gamers but to gaming audiences at large.”
Skyweaver has received 4.8 stars (out of 5) from over 1.2k reviews on the App Store, many of which come from TCG enthusiasts and pro-Magic: the Gathering and Hearthstone players: “The best MMOTCG you’re ever gonna play this decade […] The game play is totally engrossing.”, “The future of Card Games” with a “Deep diverse collection of heroes and cards to use. Never before seen card effects and abilities (…) this is not just your typical card game. It is new and innovative and unlike anything you’ve played before. I actually enjoy playing this more than mtg and I’ve been playing that for 13 years now.”
Skyweaver offers novel gameplay mechanics and intuitive deck building via a user-owned market — rendering an engaging user experience. With over 500 unique cards, players can unlock every single card in the game for free. In addition, Skyweaver gameplay is singleton, meaning only one copy of a card exists in the deck you play with, making for more varied gameplay strategies and unexpected plays. A diverse collection of Heroes and cards makes for fresh dual-deck combinations and unique card interactions.
Players can win, own, trade, sell, and gift trading cards via Skyweaver’s built-in peer-to-peer decentralized marketplace. The Skyweaver Market harnesses Horizon’s in-house developed Niftyswap Protocol — the first NFT automated market maker (AMM). Niftyswap is designed to bolster liquidity in the otherwise highly illiquid NFT market. The protocol makes buying and selling NFTs easy and intuitive for players, with prices algorithmically calculated with no-bid or sell orders — allowing users to buy and sell NFT trading cards instantly.
Peter Kieltyka, Co-Founder & CEO at Horizon Blockchain Games, says: “We’ve been crafting Skyweaver for the past four years, fine-tuning the mechanics and user experience to ensure everyone can enjoy — while maintaining the purity of Web3. We’re committed to providing millions of people with easy and secure access to Web3, where everyone can own, use and enjoy digital assets. We see Skyweaver as bridging the gap that currently exists between the Web2 and Web3 gaming communities, with all the potential that holds for mass-market adoption and growth of the Skyweaver ecosystem.”
Skyweaver Open Beta launches Tuesday, Feb 8th, where everyone can play for free and experience the new dimension of trading card games in which players gain tangible, digitally verified ownership over the Silver and Gold cards they win. Highly anticipated features are slated for release in 2022, including match replays and observer mode, in-game guilds, new cards, expansion sets, “Lethal Puzzle Games,” customization of private matches, and cosmetics to personalize player experiences.
Gamers can play free on mobile and desktop starting today at play.skyweaver.net
About Horizon Blockchain Games
Horizon Blockchain Games is driving Web3 adoption by making blockchain easy, fun, and powerful for users and developers. Its free-to-play trading card game, Skyweaver — where players can win, own, trade, gift and sell their NFT cards — launches Open Beta February 8. Sequence, Horizon’s smart wallet, is the first user-friendly multi-chain smart contract wallet that makes accessing Web3 easy and secure for everyone, while its Sequence Build developer platform makes building user-friendly Web3 applications easy. Co-creators of the ERC-1155 multi-token standard, Horizon is making Web3 fun, accessible, and for the benefit of all participants.