Known for their insanely popular series of Facebook games, Zynga ventured into the world of web3 gaming with the launch of their Oras NFT collection in fall of 2023.
They attracted an instant following and released their Sugartown platform with a staking program and a couple of playable games. So it was somewhat of a surprise to see them suddenly sell this venture.
It’s unclear as to what exactly caused Zynga to split from web3 gaming. And as far as I can tell, there isn’t even an official announcement from Zynga. But we’ve seen some other departures from the web3 space with some games pivoting to web2 only and others closing completely. The stigma around the terms blockchain and NFTs still remains strong in the larger gaming world, but it’s slowly getting chipped away.
Will this hurt web3 gaming? Not really. It’s not as if the web3 gaming space will suddenly lose thousands of players. Zynga had the potential to bring a lot more attention to the web3 space, but their leaving won’t create much of a negative impact. Best of all, the platform is still alive and well!
So while Zynga’s departure from the space may make growth slightly slower than we had hoped, for the most part, it’s still full steam ahead for blockchain gaming!
And, the fact that Sugartown, and the Oras NFT collection, are in the hands of an active team that is interested in continuing to build on this new ecosystem is a huge bonus. Anyone who was alrady interested in Sugartown should be at least a little excited by this change.
Who are D20 Labs?
D20 Labs is a web3 development team that recently purchased the rights to Sugartown from Zynga.
Apparently, D20 is basically the web3 development team that was already working on SugarTown. They have now broken off into their own company and acquired the rights to SugarTown
What is the Royal Nutz Poker Club?
D20 didn’t waste much time in getting into gear after the big announcement. They’ve already launched a new game called Royal Nutz Poker Club.
Royal Nutz Poker Club is a social poker game built on the Base network. Participants can join in poker tournaments, rise through the rankings, and claim valuable prizes. The Club will be exclusive to Ora holders and selected partner communities.
The first of those partner communities is anyone holding APE token (from the Bored Ape Yacht Club). Players also receive an unspecified boost for holding their APE tokens on the Apechain
But this exclusivity is only temporary. D20 Labs wants to open the Poker Club to the public, believing that poker is a great way to bridge web2 and web3 gaming audiences.
What is Sugartown?
Sugartown is a web3 gaming platform being built by D20 Labs. Sugartown will be a centralized social hub and launching platform for gaming communities.
D20 Labs released a teaser trailer with very brief previews of a number of games icluding racing, fighting, RPG, survival, and more. We don’t have any details about these games yet.
With their recent release of the Royal Nutz Poker Club, hopefully more games will follow soon.
The lore for Sugartown revolves around a group of farm animals who inadvertently opened a multidimensional portal. As part of this event, Oras appeared. Oras are the first NFT collection for Sugartown, and offer special perks for those who hold and stake them.
SugarTown can only be accessed by Ora holders at the moment.
They are currently in what the D20 team calls Chapter 1. It’s unclear exactly what they mean by this, but they hint at snapshots and airdrops. And I would imagine that participation matters.
