Play-to-Earn casual mobile gaming company GAMEE, an Animoca Brands subsidiary, has secured a new partnership with the Premier League football team – Manchester City – to bring a new range of football-themed games to the P2E gaming platform – Arc8.
To kick off the partnership, the partners will launch the flagship football title, Manchester City Striker, which harnesses 3D graphics and blockchain integration. The game itself pits the player against a skilled, AI-controlled goalkeeper, and target-based shooting of increasing difficulty.
GAMEE will host unique tournaments and matches in Man City Striker in which players will be able to earn crypto as rewards.
While the partnership itself signals yet another major sports team venturing into the metaverse, it also marks the start of what the Arc8 team sees as its evolution into an ‘arcadeverse’, a virtual casual gaming space that connects players, brands, and game creators.
Bozena Rezab, the CEO of GAMEE, commented: “Arc8 started as a mobile app offering crypto rewards for play-and-earn gameplay, and grew into a product with a global audience of 200,000 monthly active users. The next step in the evolution of Arc8 is to become a hub for partner projects that are entering the blockchain gaming space via our platform. Manchester City is one of the very first partners to go live and we’re thrilled to collaborate with one of the leading brands in the world of sports.”
Arc8 currently has 12 live games, including Asteroids in collaboration with Atari and, as of today, Man City Striker in partnership with Manchester City FC. Additional brand partnerships will be announced in the coming weeks.
This isn’t Man City’s first foray into the digital realm, with the club becoming the first soccer team to start building the world’s first football stadium inside the metaverse in a partnership with VR experts at Sony.
This article was first published on BlockchainGamer.biz.
Former editor of - and now contributing writer to - our partner site BlockchainGamer.biz, James is a freelance tech, finance and gaming journalist and expert on the NFT and blockchain space.