Executives at a16z seem to be enticed by the intersection of metaverse, Web3, and gaming happening now in the industry. The company has announced the launch of a $600 million gaming fund called Games Fund One, which seeks to power startups in the industry in three key sectors, including gaming studios, gaming relationships, and infrastructure building.
The fund, according to the company, bases its operation on the belief that “games will play a pivotal role in defining how we socialize, play, and work over the next century.” This is a natural step up from the investments that the company has made in traditional and Web3 gaming startups, including Epic Games and companies like Metatheory and Sky Mavis.
On how the fund might help their portfolio startups, the company stated:
We will continue to add more functions and develop deeper networks that are tailored to the games ecosystem so we can help our portfolio companies with everything from building digital communities, to managing their virtual economies, to IP licensing best practices, to helping build their development teams.
A Metaverse OpportunityA16z supports the idea that these investments will also be key to the development of the metaverse, an alternate world in which people will be able to interact. In this sense, a16z declared:
We believe games infrastructure and technologies will be key building blocks of the Metaverse, an opportunity that dwarfs the current $300 billion game industry itself.
The introduction of the metaverse in the gaming field means that there could be an emergence of new technologies capable of supporting such activities in the virtual world. These gaming experiences can also bring tokens into the environment, directed to satisfy the need for native payments in the area. A16z recognizes this potential, stating that “games are also driving innovation across the entire consumer ecosystem, pioneering … monetization, such as microtransactions, battle passes, and web3 tokens.”
The metaverse concept is already subject to heavy investing by several parties, and Citi has estimated that the total market of the metaverse economy might grow up to $13 billion by 2030, attracting more than 5 billion people.