Reddit co-founder backs blockchain-based Hearthstone competitor

Alexis Ohanian, one of the co-founders of Reddit, one of the Internet’s most popular sites, has just invested big – he led a funding round that totalled $3.75 million. Said funding round was held by Horizon Games, a blockchain-based game studio that is trying to compete with games like Hearthstone and Magic: The Gathering. It’ll also compete with projects like Gods Unchained and the Abyss, both of which are also blockchain-based titles.

Other investors include Coinbase Ventures, Polychain Capital, Inovia Capital and others. Originally, the round was closed in 2018, however it was only just announced. The funds have been used to pay for the creation and expansion of the game Skyweaver. Ethereum-powered as it is, the game is based on the platform Arcadeum. Marketed as a ‘Trading Card Game from Another Dimension’, it seeks to compete with other, high-profile trading card games.

Horizon Games CEO Peter Kieltyka Spoke about this immense project: “I wanted to introduce a product on blockchain technology. We wanted to deliver something my friends could use. We realized this was a huge market, it’s a huge idea, ‘CryptoKitties’ had come out, and we could see the movement.”

Cryptokitties is another crypto-based game where users breed, sell and care for digital cats. Special edition and limited cats sell for $9000 and up – the potential is enormous. Horizon wanted to create something similar – they have been working on Skyweaver for some time now. Players engage in one v one contests using collectible cards.

Due to token and scalability issues, Horizon developed an entirely new platform – Arcadeum – in order to host the game. Skyweaver is free to play and gives users a randomly selected set of cards to start playing – they can also buy individual cards from the platform. They can also earn cards by winning games. The overall supply and value are controlled by Skyweaver to keep things consistent. Unlike most games of this type. Horizon specifically chose not to sell booster packs (the card equivalent of loot boxes).

While players can purchase specific cards if they want to, they can’t and don’t need to gamble on worthless card in multipacks. This will give cards a fixed price and take out quite a bit of the gambling aspects that are currently causing so many issues with different games and creators. In total, at launch there will be 350 different cards, with more being added down the line, most likely, as is common with this type of game.

The overall idea is to not win the game by paying (with crypto) but rather to improve and earn better cards by playing the game itself. Individual cards are supplied in order to help past a stalemate, and not in order to buy an entirely new deck. Cards can be earned through gameplay as well, making the whole thing a bit more like a loyalty system, at least according to Peter Kieltyka.