Players have always been the lifeblood of games, whether we’re talking about the retro arcade titles of the 1980s or immersive modern metaverses like Alien Worlds and Decentraland. But until recent times, gamers lacked organization strength and influence. They were the “grunts” who kept things moving but had very little say in decision-making. With the advance of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations – DAOs – that is finally starting to change.
DAOs, which are controlled by code and smart contracts, and designed to be responsive to the people’s will, empower a whole generation of content creators, gamers and entrepreneurs. The gaming DAOs draw on the collective wisdom of gamers to better help them monetize virtual reality projects and manage their NFT asset war chest. Some DAOs even go further and finance promising gaming ventures to compete with the tech titans.
These are the 10 most popular gaming DAOs currently operating on the internet3.
1. GameDAO
GameDAO is a gamer-content creator, GameFi investor, and eSports organisation that aims at enriching the gaming community. Participants can form collective clans to pursue shared goals, such as crowdfunding new games, creating battle-hardened guilds or participating in lucrative tournaments. GameDAO, a bespoke multichain network built to elevate the game industry, has sponsored an eSports group (SPARX Secret), with another partnership currently in progress. This venture, founded by Marco Bahn (a veteran game designer who is also a tech entrepreneur), should be a watch.
2. Ancient8
Ancient8 has a lofty goal: to “educate and empower the next 100 million metaverse citizens with blockchain and GameFi.” To that end, the company is building a DAO and infrastructure layer for gamified finance, building on experience gained from running Vietnam’s biggest blockchain gaming guild. Ancient8 raised $10M in private capital rounds earlier this year. The company now focuses on expanding its scholar base, strengthening Ancient8 Dojo’s Solana-focused launchpad and partnering with more GameFi project partners.
3. Ready Player DAO
Ready Player DAO was founded during the GameFi boom in summer 2021. It raised over 1000 ETH and soon had capital that it deployed in play-to earn ecosystems like Axie Infinity. Since making its debut, the fast-growing DAO has brought thousands of ‘scholars’ under its umbrella and expanded its portfolio of web3 projects, making equity investments in game studios, metaverses, and artist collectives. RPD also received investment from ConsenSys Mesh (Ancient8) and Fourth Revolution Capital.
4. AvocadoDAO
Avocado DAO was founded by a passionate community of blockchain gamers. It has since invested in many web3 games as well as NFT/GameFi platforms. The Avocado DAO’s scholars have the opportunity to pool their resources and earn/play across many gaming environments, including Pegaxy and The Wasted Lands. Earlier this year Avocado launched its very own token ($AVG), an asset that can be staked in any of the platform’s three pools to earn rewards. DAO intends to create a number of Treasury Vaults for different platforms and games in 2022.
5. BAYZ
The BAYZ DAO has four pillars: guild management; consultancy and advisory services; content creation; and game distribution/publishing. Founded by eSports OGs Matt Rutledge and João Borges, BAYZ is community-owned and operated, with a relentless focus on creating resources players need to maximize their earning revenues in P2E. To date, most of BAYZ’ community fund has been deployed in Axie Infinity and The Sandbox, though a flurry of recent partnerships (MonkeyLeague, MetalCore, Elemental Raiders) has expanded its horizons.
6. Cerebral Gaming
Rather than being purely pitched at players, Cerebral Gaming is geared towards streamers – the sort followed by millions on Twitch, TikTok, YouTube etc. Ostensibly, the model works by ensuring a percentage of streamers’ ad revenue flows back to Cerebral, which then conducts buy-backs of its native attention token to further its ambitions. While streamers earn crypto tips, the Harmony-based DAO invests in investments like metaverse land. Next year, CG will host several eSports tournaments as well as build an NFT platform to allow streamers to incorporate better monetization models in their content.
7. Merit Circle
Formerly affiliated with Yield Guild Games (YGG), the Merit Circle DAO is one of the industry’s most popular, with a thriving community of over 3,750 hardcore gamers spread throughout Europe, Asia, Africa and South America. This platform offers education content, one-to-one mentoring and coaching sessions that enhance performance. It also aims to make a profit through the use of in-game resources it has in its treasury. Speaking of profit, Merit takes a flat 30% of scholars’ earnings, leaving them with a healthy 70%.
8. Alpha Gaming DAO
Like Cerebral Gaming, Alpha Gaming DAO is built on the Harmony ONE network, where its goal is to “expand the metaverse and generate revenue via scholarships, as well as leverage our community-owned assets for maximum utility while sharing profits with token holders and gamers.” If you’re a gifted gamer who wants to be rewarded for your time and effort, that sounds like a pretty sweet deal. Unsurprisingly, every game within the portfolio is its own sub-DAO, complete with vault and multisig. Gamers are currently harvesting resources and completing quests across ecosystems like Defi Kingdoms.
9. TreasureDAO
TreasureDAO, which was built on Arbitrum is a NFT platform that evolved to a decentralized network of communities and games. Powered by its native $MAGIC token, Treasure’s ecosystem is made up of the original NFT marketplace, an AMM (MagicSwap), and Bridgeworld, a game of “strategic commerce, trade and domination” that sits at the centre of the “Treasure metaverse.” Boasting over 100,000 members, TreasureDAO seeks to build bridges between disparate gaming ecosystems, unified by a single belief: the player comes first.
10. Pro Gamer DAO
Pro Gamer DAO is busy making waves lately, partnering up with other DAOs that are gamer-oriented (Avocado and States), to expand its expanding community of seasoned gamers. PG DAO is based in South Korea, but has global ambitions. It describes itself as the portal of choice for elite gamers who currently play in League of Kingdoms MMORTS. Although still a small fish in a big pond, this DAO’s penchant for bringing value to players is sure to expand its footprint in the years to come.
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