🪩 This Past Month in Web3 Gaming

Welcome to another month of Delphi’s Gaming Roundup. This month’s report represents the end of Q2 ’23 and the start of H2. It is also the last Gaming Roundup for the foreseeable future 😢. That said, we are excited to transition into new forms of content starting next month! Feel free to tag us in the Delphi Digital Telegram group. We’d love to hear your feedback.

With that out of the way, here’s what you can expect from the June Gaming Roundup:

Web3 game funding has fallen ~30% consecutively over the past 3 quarters
The MENA region and China are investing BIG in gaming and the metaverse
Token prices, total market cap, and volume are down across the board, but RON defied expectations
NFL Rivals, the compliant NFT mobile game with almost 1M downloads
ImmutableX announces multiple new partnerships, and Zynga increases its exposure to Web3

💰 Funding Landscape

Despite the total number of deals in June falling by 47% compared to May, the total funding raised remained relatively stable ($89.4M vs. $85.8M). That said, Mythical Games’ $37M Series C1 round of funding skews the data to make it look like the average raise per project has increased from last month. In reality, not much has changed apart from there being fewer deals announced.

When we zoom out to look at the quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) performance, it becomes apparent that funding metrics have continued to fall from last year’s highs. Total funding amount in Q2 ’23 fell by 52% since Q4 ’22, or an average of ~30% per quarter. Somewhat encouragingly, the number of deals has “only” dropped by 16% from Q4 and 21% from Q1, suggesting that VCs are still actively investing but allocating less capital per deal. To add to this point, the average raise per deal has fallen by 43% since Q4, from $13M to $7.3M. We have long been expecting valuations to decline back down to game industry standards and can only hope that a return to lean start-up practices will force teams to be more capital efficient in their pursuit of product-market fit.

In funding-related news, a recent report from the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC) predicted that gaming revenue from the MENA region will hit $6B by 2027, with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Egypt bringing in a combined $3.14B by 2025. The Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund (PIF) is leading the charge, placin