Decentral Games Completes ‘ICE Merge’

[PRESS RELEASE – Tortola, British Virgin Islands, 29th September 2022]

Decentral Games, the game studio and own Metaverse behind ICE Poker, Decentraland’s most popular gaming site, has implemented a plan that would reduce ICE’s chip emissions by 55%.

The downgrade is achieved by changing the type of rewards earned by delegate players who rent the portable NFTs required to join the game. From now on, instead of direct ICE rewards, they will get “Banked ICE” which can be used to buy clothing and shine for ICE Poker Sit-n-Go, allowing them to join their tournaments

The change does not affect players who own their wearables, while Banked ICE offers a direct path to NFT ownership. This is part of a shift from a Play-to-Earn model to Play & Own, giving players a path to owning assets themselves.

This will inevitably change the composition of the player base, but the goal is to make it more player-owner-based, bringing in committed, long-term players who can hone their craft at ICE Poker.

Although delegated players make up 90% of the active player base, they generally extract value from the ecosystem by immediately selling the earned ICE. The change to Banked ICE would help align long-term incentives for players, making delegation a path to ownership and not just a way to make short-term money. Bank ICE holders will still be able to redeem tokens at ICE, but will incur a 70% penalty and require a minimum balance of 6,666 Bank ICE.

This will have a positive impact on the dynamics of ICE, leaving only effective token sinks to generate value for holders. Thanks to the wearables and shine system, the ICE Poker ecosystem can maintain a balanced player economy, where burns are consistently higher than new emissions.

“The current play-to-win model is broken. While offering unlimited rewards to those who have invested nothing can be incredible for getting players liquidity, they are unsustainable. We have seen this with almost every major GameFi who maintained this model. We’re taking a different approach. Our focus is long-term and focused on allowing our players to own in-game assets through their gameplay while managing the token issuances we create so that the base of players can scale seamlessly. This is what will differentiate us over the next 12-18 months,” said Matthew Howells-Barby, CMO of Decentral Games.

About Decentralized Games

Decentral Games is a leading metaverse game company. They create games and social experiences in the metaverse that reach hundreds of thousands of visitors every month. Its flagship product, ICE Poker, accounts for over 60% of all daily active users on Decentraland.