A Cold-Blooded Look Into Web3 Gaming
Fableborne is an ARPG x Strategy mobile game built by Pixion Games. Pixion is on a mission to create competitive games that can be enjoyed in short, “snackable” sessions. Unlike other multiplayer games, Fableborne doesn’t require a huge time commitment. Everyone can compete at their own pace. The game offers a unique take on asynchronous PVP: on defense you have strategic deck building, while on offense you have high intensity ARPG raiding.
Kam Punia CEO & Founder
With 12 years in the industry, Kam has held positions at Konami Digital Entertainment, Red Man Gaming Ltd., and Onstar. He is also a Gaming Advisory Board Member of ECOMI (VeVe Digital Collectibles).
Sëmen Samusev
Technical Director
Sëmen has years of experience leading backend teams, including serving as Head of Server-side Development at ZeptoLab.
Tamara Slavskaya Director of Operations
As the former Head of Operations at Pixonic, Tamara scaled the War Robots team and operated a real-time multiplayer game with millions of active players.
Maria Gillies Product Director
Maria served as Product Manager at Hutch Games and Jagex (Runescape) before joining Pixion. She is an active member of several influential communities in the Web3 space.
In June 2024, Pixion announced a partnership with Power Protocol, a Web3 live ops infrastructure platform that will power Fableborne and any future blockchain titles from the studio.
Pixion Games has raised a total of $7.5M. Their latest funding round was led by Shima Capital in July 2023.
Fableborne combines ARPG and Strategy game elements - think Diablo meets Clash Royale. In its current iteration, users beat stages in a magical realm called the Shatterlands to improve their heroes and units. The PVP component consists of setting defenses for each stage of the dungeon and raiding other players’ defenses to move up the leaderboard. It’s basically the same dungeon over and over with simple layout changes and different opponents. It’s still pretty fun, even in this nascent state.
The game development isn’t further along because Fableborne underwent a rebrand in May 2024. The team completely overhauled the mobile game’s visuals and game-loop. The developers have been moving quickly since the redesign. They launched a 48-hour holder-only playtest called the Oathbound Trials on June 5, 2024. Since then they’ve held two separate play-to-airdrop events that drew thousands of players.
Players can create and submit content to a UGC platform called Fableborne Forge to win rewards.
Adventures await in this mobile strategy game.
GAME SCORE - 4
WEB3 SCORE - 2.5
TEAM & FUNDING - 4.5
Fableborne is changing quickly, with new elements added during recent playtests that increased the game's variety and complexity. There are no apparent Web3 integrations and the NFT's utility is still unclear. However, the game is fun to play and we're excited to see what happens next.
Access to Fableborne was originally limited to holders of their Primordial NFTs. This small collection of 1392 NFTs was minted in October 2023 on Polygon. They cut the supply after minting slowed and it was clearly not going to sellout in the designated mint windows. That was the right decision because the floor price has been up since then. The collection migrated to ETH in May 2024. Fableborne has a tight-knit community but lacks presence in the space, which could explain the fairly low market cap of their collection.
There is not much information about the NFT’s utility other than airdrop allocation and access to exclusive playtests. We can imagine holders eventually gaining in-game advantages such as battle passes or exclusive skins for heroes.
Fableborne’s play-to-airdrop campaigns are a good indication that they will eventually have a token. In order to take part in the campaigns, users had to accumulate essences of various types. Players earned Bronze Essence for participating in social quests, Silver Essence for social boss battles, Gold Essence for in-game achievements, and Primordial Essence for holding Primordial NFTs. The essence ranking system prioritized players and NFT holders. Pixion’s partnership with Power Protocol is another sign of a likely token launch down the road.
Fableborne hosted three separate playtests for its redesigned game this summer: a 48-hour holder-only playtest called the Oathbound Trials and two play-to-airdrop events called Fableborne Adventures.
Oathbound Trials
June 5 - June 7, 2024
Fableborne Adventures Season One Play-to-Airdrop Campaign
July 1 - July 14, 2024
PLAYTESTS: TOTAL PLAYERS
400
Fableborne Adventures Season Two Play-to-Airdrop Campaign
August 19 - September 2, 2024
The price of the Primordial NFTs didn’t reflect the excitement and growth of Fableborne in Q2 & Q3. Some holders may have reduced their position after the rebrand. Other users could be deterred by the lack of utility. Pixion may also be managing expectations by not hyping their NFTs too much and letting the market price their assets.
Fableborne’s busy summer was reflected in their social growth. Their X follower count jumped from 34k to nearly 120k in less than 3 months. Their impressions averaged around 10K on each post following the P2A announcements, while they struggled to reach 3k impressions earlier in the year.
After this announcement, Fableborne’s X follower count surged from 34K to 82K in just one week. We can assume that one of the quests was to follow Fableborne, which increased followers by nearly 150%.
Though the redesign didn’t attract many new followers, the Primordials NFT floor price jumped from 0.199 ETH on May 13th to 0.299 ETH on May 17th.
The NFT floor price dipped to 0.24 ETH on May 30th and rebounded to 0.35 ETH just one day later on the 31st, leading to speculation that users acquired Primordials NFTs to access this holder-only playtest.
JULY 1, 2024 - FABLEBORNE ADVENTURES
SEASON ONE PLAY-TO-AIRDROP CAMPAIGN
Fableborne’s first P2A campaign drove its follower count from 79K at the time of announcement to 120K halfway through the event. The NFT price also increased during the playtest, moving from 0.235 ETH on July 3rd to 0.355 ETH on July 5th.
AUGUST 19, 2024 - FABLEBORNE
SEASON TWO PLAY-TO-AIRDROP CAMPAIGN
There was no significant change in followers and floor price during the second P2A playtest, hinting that Fableborne didn’t gain access to a new market with the recent campaign.
*Data Source: GamesLabs Analytics
The Lizard Lookout is the source for the most cold-blooded reporting on Web3 gaming. Our reporters deliver in-depth analysis of new games, industry metrics, and trend forecasts for gamers and investors that like their news with an underbelly of silliness.
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