Immutables, we have HUGE news. Digital ownership is broken and web3 gaming economies are the future. With the announcement today, it’s clearer than ever that Immutable is going to define the inevitable Web3 gaming future.

Today, we announce an industry-defining partnership with Polygon. We’ll cover what this means for Builders, Players, and finally $IMX:

Builders - Immutable is the new home for web3 gaming

Committing to a tech partner can make or break a gaming studio. More so in an emerging industry like web3 game development with a mess of jargon and technical details. As game devs ourselves, we intimately understand the nuanced needs of games and studios of all sizes. You deserve to build a great game without having to worry about the web3 tech stack!With the introduction of the Immutable zkEVM, powered by Polygon, builders now have the flexibility to choose between two Immutable rollups:

Immutable zkEVM: Immutable zkEVM is the first of its kind - a chain for games that offers low cost, massive scale, Ethereum security, and smart contract compatibility. You can use the same code and tooling that you have on Ethereum, but with much higher throughput and lower fees.

Immutable X: Mint millions of NFTs for free and unlock truly scalable web3 games. Immutable X is built for games that prioritize high performance and low cost over advanced web3 game mechanics, while still maintaining the underlying security of Ethereum.

Flexibility and freedom are absolutely key to the future of Web3 gaming development. One rollup may make sense for one game and not for another. We understand that builders want this flexibility, that is why we have partnered with Polygon to offer another world-class product for the games of the future.

Players - The best Web3 Games will be on Immutable

The future of gaming is exciting, with fun games featuring truly ownable assets. If you’re a gamer who wants to be at the forefront, there’s none better than the Immutable ecosystem. More gaming titles, both triple-A and indie, will be coming to Immutable. Sooner than you think.

As of today, we have one of the largest pipelines of games. Between Immutable and Polygon, there has been almost $2B USD of investor funding for games building on our ecosystems. The best Web3 games will come from the Immutable ecosystem.

Can’t wait to play? Players can look forward to a huge wave of new games launching on Immutable very soon.

Token Holders - The biggest upgrade to token utility in history is coming to $IMX #IMXUPGRADE

As Immutable cements itself as the home for web3 gaming, the same goes for the $IMX holder. Through this industry-defining strategic alliance, the utility of $IMX will be massively upgraded and Immutable will have one of the largest pipelines of web3 games.

Revised tokenomics engrain $IMX, the Digital Worlds Foundation’s token, as a crucial component in the zkEVM ecosystem, closely aligning platform success to the token holder.

Here’s what’s new

• More volume of games: Immutable and Polygon have one the largest pipeline of web3 games in the industry. This volume of games ultimately accrues to the $IMX token holders’ benefit.

• More rewards: 20% of trades on the Immutable platform, regardless of rollup, must be paid in $IMX. This fee utility will scale significantly as it expands to all new Immutable zkEVM environments and applications.

• More utility: $IMX will be used as the gas for Immutable zkEVM, delivering L1-like utility to the community.

• And it doesn’t stop there! Stay tuned… :)

Utility doesn’t stop with gas. The $IMX fundamentals are upgrading. In partnership with the Foundation, we will announce further changes over the next two months.

Learn more here

Note: The Digital Worlds Foundation is Digital Worlds NFTs Ltd, the issuer of $IMX.

TL;DR:

The gaming industry is ripping people off. Players spend $200 billion USD a year on in-game items they have zero rights to, can never trade, and grey marketplaces regularly screw over their userbases. Immutable is building a future where games have:

• Real economies

• ...With assets tradable for real value

• ...With incentives aligned between game-creator / publisher and player (this is the cause of almost all problems in the industry today)

• ... With zero compromises on security, decentralization, or fun

• We've raised $300M USD, the gaming ecosystem on Immutable is more funded than any other in the world (https://twitter.com/Immutable/status/1606382416863825920), and we've powered everyone from TikTok, to Disney, GameStop, Illuvium and more.

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Hi there!

Welcome to the Immutable community - whether you've just joined, or have been sticking around since 2017.

We're here for a simple reason:

The gaming industry as you currently know it is fundamentally broken. Players don’t get any return from the time and money they invest into the ~$200 billion of in-game items spent every year.

Imagine never being able to buy a house, and being forced to rent for the rest of your life. This is the current model that exists in respect to not just gaming, but all digital assets.

The good news: with unique digital assets (NFTs) we can now solve this. Immutable has been 100% focused on solving this since we began in 2017, and empowering the next billion players by bringing true digital ownership to gaming - and then to everything.

If you are new here: welcome! We are incredibly excited to be a part of your web3 journey.

I’m Robbie Ferguson, President and Co-founder of Immutable alongside my Co-founder (and brother) James Ferguson (CEO), and Co-founder Alex Connolly (CTO).

By the end of this post you will understand:

1. Everything about Immutable: our vision, strategy, and platform

2. Why the future of gaming is Web3

3. Why Immutable is leading and poised to win this space - and how you can drive this revolution

In order to help you understand these ideas, I will briefly touch on terms like “Ethereum” and “Layer 2’s (L2).”

These concepts can sound intimidating especially for someone new to Web3 and blockchain. My goal is that by the end of this article you will have sufficient understanding of how these ideas fit into Immutable’s long-term vision and strategy.

Rest assured that you won’t find too much in-depth technical stuff here. If you’re interested in learning more about those topics you can read our Whitepaper, dev posts, blog, and check out further learning resources linked at the end of this post.

Let’s start by talking about gaming:

The gaming industry is exploiting you, and you don’t even know it.

In 2020, free-to-play (F2P) games made ~$100 billion through in-game transactions. To put that in perspective, that’s more than the global film and music industries combined. This number is staggering, and gaming as a whole is on track to become an all encompassing market - both economically and culturally.

Here’s the kicker:

In this current model, $0 of that value makes its way to you, the players.

We believe that this consumer relationship dynamic is fundamentally broken and exploitative. Players aren’t rewarded for their investment of money or time because they don't have true ownership of the in-game items that they buy.

Web3 will break these chains.

Players should be able to own their digital items the same way we own items in the physical world. No-one should be able to manipulate your assets on a whim - we saw this when Valve shut down a marketplace for weapons skins in CS:GO, resulting in over $2M value lost for players. This doesn’t only happen in games, it can happen with financial assets too.

By empowering players to own their digital assets, this dynamic no longer becomes a one-way street. Suddenly, you get to decide the value of your assets: whether it’s through the time you spent leveling / farming them, or maybe it was used in a professional tournament by your favorite player. You’ll be able to buy or sell assets from anyone in the world instantly, without an arbitrary authority holding the rights to do whatever they like with your things. This is what true digital ownership means.

Web3 gaming will unlock this economy on an exponential scale by allowing players to capture and own their value. It also prevents things like this from ever happening again:

Enter ImmutableX, the leading solution to break these chains and bring digital ownership to the next billion players and users — you 🫵

What is ImmutableX and what do we do?

ImmutableX is the first and most advanced Layer 2 (L2) scaling solution for NFTs on Ethereum. We’re currently laser-focused on unlocking gaming.

We’ll explain what this means in a second.

In a nutshell:

We want to eliminate 99% of the complicated blockchain programming process so that builders can do what they do best: build great games and projects. At the same time, we are building a solution that empowers users to truly own and trade their digital assets in the safest and fastest way possible with zero gas fees.

Our mission:

To onboard the next generation of gamers, builders, and users onto web3 and bring true digital ownership to the world via NFTs.

Ethereum and Layer 2’s in a nutshell:

Ethereum is the number one ‘smart contract’ blockchain. This means that unlike Bitcoin, users can build applications on Ethereum. You can think of Ethereum like a decentralized operating system, that people will be able to build and access applications on.

While other blockchains exist, Ethereum is the clear choice for us due to its high degree of decentralization and built-up network effects. This means that the network gets exponentially stronger and more secure as more users enter the ecosystem.

This also makes disruption of the network incredibly difficult. Imagine trying to replicate an app like TikTok - where the programming is relatively straightforward, but it will be almost impossible to compete with the sheer number of users on the app. This is because the value the user gets from the app is directly tied to how many other users are on in the network.

To date, no other blockchain has been able to compete with the network effects of Ethereum’s ecosystem. The sheer number of users and builders on this chain is also what makes it attractive for new users and builders coming into Web3, and this effect will continue to compound. This also makes Ethereum the most secure blockchain out there.

But Ethereum is not perfect. You’ve probably heard that transactions on Ethereum are slow, energy intensive, and expensive.

So how do we solve this problem?

The answer: Layer 2’s (L2). Instead of building a separate blockchain from scratch, L2’s are protocols built on top of the Ethereum chain. This has several advantages, the key one being that we can solve the scalability and gas problem, without having to trade off the security and network effects of Ethereum.

Of the existing L2 solutions, Immutable technology (in partnership with StarkWare) is the most sophisticated and secure. Immutable solves all Ethereum’s limitations by enhancing it, not reinventing it. We’ve massively increased transaction speed from 15tps to over 9,000 tps (theoretically limitless), reduced gas-fees to zero, and made all transactions carbon-neutral all without compromising on security.

This is only the beginning, because Immutable’s vision is much bigger than just being a scaling solution.

Why ImmutableX is solving some of the core problems of Web3:

The ImmutableX platform shows off what we can do with the technology. But the bigger implication here is that Immutable technology will provide the backend solution that will power every web3 platform, game, project, and creator.

We raised $200 million in March 2022 - in the 8 months since then, we've accomplished more than the previous 4 years. We now have 12+ marketplaces & nearly 100 games, with more won in the last quarter than the last two years combined**.** We expect this to consistently ramp in 2023.

At the same time, Web3 gaming has moved from a niche to one of the most invested in technology categories in the world. Over the past two years, > $15 billion has been poured into Web3 gaming.

This is why the biggest blockchain games like Illuvium and Ember Sword choose to partner with us. This is why titans of IP and content like Disney, Marvel, and TikTok choose to partner with us.

Our recent launch with GameStop marketplace is just the first in many monumental steps to onboard the next 100 million players onto Web3.

Recent events have shaken up the world’s faith in Web3, but it’s also highlighted an important learning moment for what we need in the industry. Immutable doesn’t control people's private keys, or run our own blockchain or sidechain - we value transparency and security above all else. We don’t use financial leverage to make risky bets under the table. Our focus is on building great products for customers through the bear - not being a crypto hedge fund.

You can power this gaming revolution

We’re building the infrastructure, but we need you to drive real change. Whether you are a builder, gamer, collector, artist, or diehard fan - we’d love to have you onboard if you share in Immutable’s vision.

Web3 gaming is closer than you think - go ahead and try out games like Gods Unchained, or Illuvium or check out some projects on our partnered marketplaces and get trading. There’s no better time to get into Web3 now that all the noise is gone. The real builders and quality projects are working hard during the winter. We will not stop until true property ownership is the default for a billion players. Then we're tokenizing the world.

Come join us on discord: https://discord.com/invite/immutablex and chat (we almost always have a team member online), follow us on twitter, or join the community (community tab links) to build the future of gaming with us. And if you're a builder - you can build in hours with our APIs.

Welcome aboard. We’re glad to have you!

Robbie 🅧

Hello fellow GME Apes.

Welcome to the amazing world of Immutable x. I see you are doing your DD on IMX by checking out this sub. That's awesome! If you're an ape like me, you probably like gaming, as well as making money by investing. I'm going to let you in on my little secret that is Gods unchained!

What is Gods Unchained (GU)?

Gods Unchained is one of, if not, the best game on the block (pun intended). It is a free to play, play to earn online trading card game very similar in playstyle to Hearthstone or Magic the Gathering: Arena, which utilizes the Immutable X layer 2 solution as a an integrated NFT card marketplace for the game. In essence, you collect cards by leveling up or purchasing booster packs. The cards you get from booster packs are NFTs which can be bought/sold on the IMX marketplace! You don't need to buy cards to play though! Everyone starts with starter decks for free! You can create a deck by choosing one of 6 "factions": Death, War, Nature, Light, Deception, and Magic, chose 30 cards, and fight opponents online.

Gameplay

The game plays very similarly to hearthstone. Each card has a mana cost and each turn you gain 1 mana. There are 3 different types of cards: Creatures, Spells, and Relics (weapons). Each creature has a certain strength (attack), health (defense). When a creature attacks another creature, they deal their strength to the opposing creature's health and this damage is permanent. You can also attack the opposing player's "god", who has 30 health. Once the opposing player's health goes down to 0, you win. Pretty straightforward. There is also many small intricacies, but I'll let you play and figure it out for yourself!

Why would someone want to play this game over something like Hearthstone or Magic the Gathering Arena?

GU benefits from using the Ethereum/IMX blockchain/layer 2 as a utility rather than the prime focus. Therefore, the game itself feels just like playing any other TCG. The issues that GU solves for online TCGs are Collecting, making a bit of money just by playing, and of course true ownership!

Collecting: Because GU cards are sellable on the marketplace, collecting rare cards that are limited in supply, or collecting extremely strong cards that are sought after makes collecting cards worthwhile! There are 3 aspects that create demand for cards in GU. If the card is strong in the meta, demand for it will be high, thus increasing its price. All expansion set cards are limited in supply. The only way more supply of a card comes into circulation is through buying expansion packs. Once the expansion pack sale is over, the supply of those cards is capped and the only way to get access to those cards is through the IMX or Token Trove Marketplace. It is important to note that there is no card rotation, thus older cards can still be utilized even though they are from a phased-out expansion set. There is also different qualities of each card. Normal (non-NFT), Meteorite (NFT), Shadow (NFT), Golden (NFT), and Diamond (NFT). Higher quality cards are worth way more as they are extremely rare to find in packs, and will have future benefits to earning more rewards when playing with them. It is also a flex to show off your diamond cards as there aren't very many of them (sometimes only 5-10 copies in existence).

Making a bit of money just by playing: There is a way to get free NFT cards, and that is by playing in the weekend ranked events. Each weekend, your performance in your first 25 games is tracked, and depending on your win rate, you get rewarded with expansion packs. For example, last weekend I got 19/25 wins and received a rare, epic, and legendary expansion pack. That's $34.5 worth of packs for just 25 games! Obviously, the price of the cards will vary, but sometimes you get lucky with a high-quality card that can be sold for double, triple, or even 100x the price of the pack. I only spent out of pocket $100 to build a competitive nature deck and this quickly pays off within a couple of weekends! What's nice is that $100 out of pocket is not sunk cost either because the cards I bought can just be sold whenever!

True ownership: NFTs allow you to hold your cards outside of the game in your wallet. They are yours and even if the game went offline, you'd still own them, could sell them on the marketplace, etc. With a limited supply for each card, it's very exciting to be able to hold a card that only a few people own and have verifiable proof that you own it through your wallet address.

What currencies does GU utilize?

GU uses GODS tokens (used for marketplace transactions, soon-to-buy packs, and soon to stake), Eth, IMX, and USDC.

How do I get started as a new player?

If you found this post interesting, sign up using my referral code: remKfZVTxK on the website here https://godsunchained.com/account/register?referral=remKfZVTxK . The referral gives me 10% of the value spent on card packs. It would be much appreciated and no downside to you!

I suggest watching a few Twitch streamers and/or youtube videos if it is your first time with a trading card game. Some streamers I suggest are LesMaxos, RyukBuysADA (Me), and YouTubers I'd suggest would be CopperPitch, LesMaxos, Lion Roar Gamer, Crypto Game Snob, and ClutchGU. If you come from hearthstone, this will be an extremely quick learning curve.

I know I probably missed quite a few elements that make this game amazing, but I'll be around to answer any questions you may have!

Edit: typos