Ultra Games, a long-running Web3 gaming startup, is launching its own digital PC gaming store called Ultra Games marketplace later this month. The platform will allow users to resell digital games they’ve purchased via a secondary marketplace. Ultra Games is built on top of Ultra layer-1 network, a fork of the EOS blockchain, which has been in development since 2018.
Game Offerings
The new digital PC gaming store will launch with about 60 or 70 titles, including Web3 games such as Cards of Ethernity, Cross the Ages, and MARS4. But it will also include traditional “Web2” games without NFT or token elements, such as Lords of the Fallen, The Walking Dead: The Telltale Definitive Series, and the Syberia game series.
Resale Model
Ultra Games will let players resell purchased games via the Uniq Marketplace thanks to tokenized license rights. Game publishers can opt-out of this program, but Ultra Co-CEO Nicolas Gilot believes that there is a compelling reason for game studios to enable the secondary sale of games. Publishers have the opportunity to leverage the secondary marketplace by setting an initial no-resale period, determining a minimum resale price point, and choosing the royalty percentage that they automatically receive.
Limitations
While Ultra Games is giving publishers the freedom to experiment with this new model, there is one notable limitation: the publisher’s royalty fee cannot be over 70% of the resale price. Gilot explained that the gamer wouldn’t care much if they don’t get much for selling a game. The percentage that game studios choose to receive in royalties depends on the developer and the game’s price point. For example, Rockstar Games wouldn’t do the same percentage as an indie developer that’s making a game at half the price.
Comparison with Other Startups
Robot Cache, a blockchain startup co-founded by veteran game developer Brian Fargo, has also experimented with a digital games resale model via its own IRON token. The Robot Cache marketplace lists some of the very same games that Ultra Games will offer players. However, Ultra Games is offering a different model, allowing publishers to experiment with various pricing and royalty options.
