Zilliqa turns its gaming division into a standalone business

Zilliqa, a layer-1 blockchain, is creating a new standalone business called Roll1ng Thund3rz from its gaming division.

Roll1ng Thund3rz to spark gaming activity in Zilliqa

In a press release on Feb. 13, Zilliqa developers said this spin-off would likely be a “win” for the blockchain during this crypto winter. 

Roll1ng Thund3rz, Zilliqa explained, marked a “significant milestone” as they seek to implement a new business strategy. 

Their immediate plan is to incubate and accelerate internal businesses that demonstrate “innovative use cases of Web3 and blockchain technologies”. Roll1ng Thund3rz is part of Zilliqa’s overall long-term strategy to drive growth across all facets of its ecosystem.

Valentin Cobelea will lead Roll1ng Thund3rz. Cobelea has been in charge of developing and growing the Zilliqa gaming division over the past year. 

As Roll1ng Thund3rz exists as a standalone business, he will be promoted to be the game’s co-founder and chief technical officer (CTO). Even with this role, he will continue to serve under Zilliqa. He will be part of seeing the blockchain develops an active gaming ecosystem.

The news CTO said he hopes Roll1ng Thund3rz will be the first business to crack web3 gaming.

“Our philosophy from day one has been to ‘build fun games first’ that leverage blockchain technology to provide genuine utility to the players, not create thinly-veiled financial products that masquerade as games. I’m confident that our approach, coupled with our talented team and technical backing, will see Roll1ng Thund3rz be the first business to truly crack the code of Web3 gaming and demonstrate not only the benefits of blockchain technology for this industry but offer a window into what the future of gaming will look like.”

Valentin Cobelea, CTO at Roll1ng Thund3rz

State of gaming, EVM-compatibility plans

Gradually, Roll1ng Thund3rz will be integrated into Zilliqa. In early March, they will release a first-person shooter game, WebWar3. The game is in beta, and Zilliqa claims it has over 7,000 active users. 

DappRadar data on Feb. 14 showed there are only four games in Zilliqa. The most active one, DragonZil, had eight active users in the past 30 days, managing roughly $2,000 in assets. 

In December 2022, Zilliqa launched EVM compatibility on testnet.