Ripple provides $100 million in funding for blockchain gaming developers
Ripple's Xpring today announced it is partnering with blockchain gaming platform startup Forte by providing $100 million for investment in blockchain gaming developers.
The young startup was only first announced in February and is led by Kevin Chou, formerly in charge of mobile gaming and esports at Kabam. Forte's leadership roster is strong, featuring former GarageGames and Unity GM Brett Seyler, Kabam employees Kent Wakeford and Weiwei Geng, and tech VC Mahesh Vellanki.
At launch, Chou said of blockchain gaming, "The microtransaction-driven game industry has matured and consolidated, and as a result innovation has grown stagnant. Blockchain technology offers new growth vectors and an opportunity to do things differently."
Ripple will provide the funding, while Forte will operate the fund alongside its blockchain gaming platform, which it is developing in conjunction with Ripple. Regarding today's announcement, Seyler said, “Blockchain technologies’ key innovations unlock vast potential for nearly all forms of digital interaction. Gaming is a $140 billion global industry driven predominantly by digital micro-transaction economies, which we believe will benefit immensely from the integrity and resilience of blockchain technology."
Forte is attempting to make it easier for developers to build and launch blockchain games -- and to increase engagement post-launch. Forte utilizes the Interledger Protocol in its platform combined with $XRP, which serves as a base pair settlement, while cross-chain settlement is enabled via Codius.
Forte's partnership with Ripple comes as multiple blockchains, including Tron, EOS and Ethereum, compete for developer mindshare. At the same time, large tech platforms like Kakao are rolling out their own blockchains with gaming as a focus.
