What is GALA Games?

Gala Games is often referred to as the “Steam of the Industry” by crypto enthusiasts due to its dedication to blockchain gaming projects.

The GameFi project and the GALA token, launched by Gala Games in 2021, have demonstrated a meteoric rise. The GALA token once surged 270% within 24 hours, with its daily price rising from $0.021 to $0.077, and a seven-day gain exceeding 1000%.

The perception of GALA Games among many blockchain users is similar to that of gaming platforms such as Steam and Epic. In general, GALA Games is considered a comprehensive platform for blockchain games.

This is due to GALA Games’ commitment to providing outstanding playable products and establishing easy entry points by granting players control over their digital assets within the games, effectively lowering the entry barriers for blockchain gamers to blockchain games.

What is GALA Games?

Established in 2019, GALA Games was positioned from its inception as a gaming platform in the blockchain realm. Over the years, through persistent self-development and partnerships, GALA Games has furnished its players with a diverse and extensive range of blockchain games. Therefore, it’s appropriate to analogize GALA Games as the Steam of the blockchain industry, in terms of the scale of its platform and its user acceptance.

To enhance user experience, GALA Games developed a dedicated blockchain network, allowing users to purchase licenses for operating GALA nodes, with rewards distributed based on individual contributions to the platform network.

The GALA Games platform leverages the functionalities of cryptocurrency and blockchain smart contracts, enabling developers to design blockchain games. It also allows players to own and transfer their in-game loot as NFTs, conducting safe purchases, sales, and trades via a peer-to-peer marketplace.

Town Star, the first game released by GALA Games, is an agricultural management simulation game. Players can plant crops, gather resources, and construct factories on their land to continuously elevate their economic status, a concept widely praised by industry players. In addition, the GALA Games platform also hosts a variety of other products like the RPG game Mirandus, and the PVP game Fortified, offering ample choices for various player preferences.

However, what truly distinguishes GALA Games from other projects in the blockchain gaming platform sector is its unique foundation on ERC20 and ERC1155 standards. It simultaneously serves as a game developer and an aggregator platform/game store.

Beyond their self-developed games, GALA Games aims to attract other game manufacturers to launch their games on the platform, requiring only the approval of node voting.

GALA Games also provides other game developers with standardized encryption toolkits, NFT asset libraries, and corresponding wallets, facilitating their integration into the games and the GALA Games ecosystem.

The Founding Team and Vision of GALA Games

GALA Games was founded by Eric Schiermeyer, the co-founder of the popular social and mobile gaming company Zynga.

Under Schiermeyer’s leadership, Zynga launched popular mobile games such as Poker, Mafia Wars, and Farmville. Known for his pioneering work in the industry, Schiermeyer was naturally drawn to the trend of integrating blockchain technology with gaming.

Thus, in July 2019, Eric Schiermeyer officially launched GALA Games, aiming to create a blockchain-based gaming network and grant players more game ownership.

The decisive moment for Eric Schiermeyer to venture into the blockchain industry was the success of Axie Infinity in 2018, where the gaming participation mode of ‘play and earn’ profoundly captivated his attention.

As a veteran in the gaming industry, Eric Schiermeyer, with his extensive entrepreneurial experience, especially during his time at Zynga, spearheaded several hot game products that stirred up massive enthusiasm in the video game sector.

After leaving Zynga, Schiermeyer founded Luminary, focusing on developing games for mobile platforms. In 2014, Eric Schiermeyer began studying cryptocurrencies and served as an advisor to numerous startups and investment firms four years later, while simultaneously assuming the role of Chief Marketing Officer at Carnivorce.

Upon GALA Games’ inception, Eric Schiermeyer assembled a group of experienced and reputable partners in the gaming and crypto industry, infusing the company with substantial startup capital.

Among them, Jason Brink took the role of CMO. Known by the pseudonym “Bitbender” in the crypto community since 2014, Brink has been a technical documentation engineer and marketing consultant for numerous crypto projects, including Experience Points, Verge, and Reddcoin. A scholarly advisor, Brink founded the Canadian academic consulting firm Plato Coaching and the blockchain consulting company Rubric Partners.

GALA Games’ director, Michael McCarthy, who has two decades of experience in the gaming industry, has worked for Troika Games, Massive Black, Sandbox Games, Zynga, and founded Applied Cinematics, a game animation production company.

These two individuals were Eric Schiermeyer’s most important partners when GALA Games was founded, with Eric personally serving as the company’s CEO. Thanks to the founding team’s robust background, GALA Games was ambitious from its inception, targeting to dominate the NFT domain in the gaming, film, and music industries.

However, in its early development, GALA Games’ primary focus was the development of blockchain games and establishing an online distribution platform. What sets it apart from other startups in the industry is that, due to the founders’ reputations, GALA Games has been warmly embraced by industry capital since its birth, making its initial development smooth sailing.

Governance Token GALA and the Economy Model

Conforming to the fundamental attributes of most crypto projects, GALA Games has introduced its own platform’s governance token, GALA, in its continuing development.

GALA is the functional token of the platform, utilized for rewarding network node operators, participating in network governance, earning GALA tokens through various platform games, and purchasing in-game items and NFTs from the Gala Games store.

The Gala network is supported by its users, who can independently operate Gala nodes. By simply purchasing the operation license for a Gala Node, they can earn rewards including GALA tokens, limited edition NFTs, and the opportunity to assist in developing the Gala Games ecosystem. This is the core of the entire ecosystem — the Gala Founder’s Node.

（Image sourcegogalagames.medium.com）

However, the specific role of the GALA token is for application and related purchasing activities within the GALA Games ecosystem.

If compared to purchasing games on the Steam platform, GALA acts as the currency within the Gala Games ecosystem, offering participants a convenient and secure method of payment for digital goods or in-game items.

The philosophy here is that the ownership of game assets on the platform truly belongs to the users, rather than being controlled by the game company. This ownership difference is particularly evident in online gaming products.

Unlike traditional games or in-game item settlements on gaming platforms, which typically follow a per-order, one-time payment structure, GALA can be universally used in all games and for all items on Gala Games. Additionally, due to its blockchain-based nature, the usability of GALA on the platform surpasses that of cash.

As Gala Games is not a single blockchain game, but a gaming platform that offers a series of game products for users to experience, a variety of games, such as PVP, tower defense, RPG, and sci-fi strategy games, have been launched. GALA serves as a universal token for all games on the platform.

However, what sets GALA apart from other cryptocurrencies is its specific design for gaming, intended explicitly for gaming purposes. And since most games on the GALA Games platform include NFT elements, the circulation of GALA has created a game ecosystem with a clear application scenario, forming the basic economic structure of GALA Games.

Since the launch of GALA, its price has experienced multiple rises and falls, aligning with the general market trend of cryptocurrencies in recent years.

Of course, the price surge of GALA is closely connected with the explosion of the NFT market in 2021. Most games on the GALA Games platform are based on GameFi and NFT elements, embodying gaming and economic dimensions.

Therefore, if one were to examine GALA’s price trend in recent years, it would be evident that the price peak occurred in the last quarter of 2021, followed by a bear market. GALA’s price also continuously declined until it began to recover in January of this year.

Despite this, GALA remained one of the widely followed cryptocurrencies in 2021.

As 2022 arrived, GALA Games announced an upgrade to the platform token GALA, which was exchanged at a 1:1 ratio from the original V1 version. The platform network no longer supports GALA (V1), with the official governance token becoming GALA (V2).

This upgrade brought significant changes to GALA Games. Firstly, the previous paid and free admission standards for network nodes were removed from the ecosystem. This was due to the long-term network stability relying excessively on 24/7 online operation, a goal unachievable under any model.

The officials will launch rented or free nodes to enhance network stability. Additionally, all publishers entering the network will need to utilize these nodes in certain game scenarios.

This structure allows game developers to create their own micro-ecosystems, better supporting the gaming needs of their users.

The Ecosystem of the GALA Games Platform

Long before the advent of blockchain gaming platforms like GALA Games, the fusion of gaming and NFTs was already underway, with its inception tracing back to 2017. This union garnered the attention of blockchain enthusiasts due to the parallels in challenges faced by both domains.

The gaming and NFT sectors, inherently, grapple with the quandary of a saturated market. Regardless of the intrinsic quality of individual products, the probability of success for any single venture remains diminutive. However, the market structure resembles a pyramid, and should a project break through and gain traction, the potential returns are monumental.

In contrast to single projects, gaming platforms such as Steam and Epic have the acumen to cultivate a stable foundation through strategic operations, thus ensuring that the outcome of an individual game does not influence the platform’s overall trajectory. Moreover, as long as the platform sustains its operations over time, fostering a diverse array of gaming products, it positions itself to reap the rewards of the industry’s evolution.

This attribute is not solely confined to the gaming sector but is reflected across myriad projects in the crypto space. For instance, while blue-chip NFT projects constitute a small fraction of the overall NFT market, their trading volumes claim a disproportionately large share.

GALA Games faced similar initial hurdles, and its progression is a testament to the dynamic above.

The initial impetus for GALA Games was attracting an array of collaborators, including industry stalwarts like Brave, Flare Networks, Mazer Games, Polygon, and Binance. This synergy, bolstered by GALA Games’ innate resources, rendered the platform exceptionally alluring to blockchain game developers.

That is not to say GALA Games enjoys a monopoly; there are worthy contenders like MOBOX, not to mention the encompassing Ethereum ecosystem. However, GALA Games has carved a niche by pursuing a more specialized developmental path.

In essence, GALA Games emphasizes its accomplishments in gaming. Consequently, it has diligently evaded an issue ubiquitous in blockchain gaming – the tendency to accentuate the application of blockchain technology while neglecting the entertainment value. This results in blockchain games often being inaccessible, with low playability, and solely reliant on their economic models to entice the existing crypto user base, lacking a broader audience and unable to sustain longevity, culminating in mere speculative ventures.

GALA Games is grounded in the ethos of “Fun First”. It does not trivialize gaming as a mere conduit to demonstrate the viability of blockchain; rather, it employs blockchain as an underlying technological pillar to construct engaging games, catering to a diverse demographic encompassing traditional gamers.

Players on GALA Games can not only immerse themselves in captivating titles but also, through the empowerment of blockchain, exercise full control over their in-game assets, and further capitalize on their gaming prowess to earn rewards.

Currently, the highest sale price for an NFT within the GALA Games platform has reached a staggering $3 million, with total sales of 26K and over 1.3 million monthly active users, manifesting a colossal and robust ecosystem.

The Evolution of GALA Games

Since its inception, GALA Games has been a luminary in the NFT and GameFi markets. Scrutinizing the trajectory of the platform itself, between 2019 and 2020, the focus was predominantly on refining the various mechanisms and functionalities of the platform.

During this phase, GALA Games began integrating an array of games within its platform, incrementally bolstering its stature within the industry.

Beyond the realm of gaming, GALA Games harbored grand aspirations. In February 2022, GALA Games heralded a new allocation of $5 billion intending to broaden its Web3 objectives encompassing movies, music, gaming, and even theme park NFTs.

Since early 2021, the GALA Games platform has forged alliances with several public blockchains to circumvent exorbitant on-chain transaction fees. The GALA token has also been rendered interoperable on its partner chains, such as Polygon and BNB Chain, allowing all platform users to relish reduced transaction costs on these blockchain networks.

Fast forward to 2023, the gaming ecosystem within the GALA Games platform has burgeoned exponentially, and the blockchain network, which serves as the bedrock of its infrastructure, now boasts over 16,000 users actively participating in routine maintenance and support.

Furthermore, blockchain elements such as GameFi and NFTs are often construed as components of the Metaverse. Following the progression through the previous bull market, GALA Games has emerged as a pivotal player in the Metaverse domain and is widely recognized as a distinguished project, laser-focused on gaming platform operations.

Conclusion

As the plethora of blockchain-based games on the GALA Games platform continues to proliferate, its sphere of influence is destined to expand and the range of applications will diversify, catalyzing a commensurate surge in demand.

As the market rejuvenates, it is anticipated that the gaming sector will retain its allure as one of the hotbeds for innovation, and the evolutionary trajectory of GALA Games will serve as an invaluable compass for both users and the market at large.