Blockchain game, Infinite Fleet raises US$3.1M in a security token sale

Infinite Fleet is an epic sci-fi massively multiplayer online (MMO) strategy game developed by Pixelmatic and published by Exordium Limited.

Pixelmatic is a game development studio founded in 2011, based in Shanghai, and supplemented by a distributed team from around the world. The Founder and CEO of Pixelmatic is Samson Mow, who is also the Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) of Blockstream.

Mow’s prior experience in the crypto space before Blockstream and Pixelmatic was as the COO of BTCC, one of the largest bitcoin exchanges and mining pools in the world.

Previous to the blockchain and crypto space Mow was involved in the gaming industry for over 10 years. He was a director of production and an executive producer at Ubisoft, where he spearheaded expansion into Asian markets for web, social, and mobile games.

Samson oversaw ongoing development and live operations of the cross-platform (web and iOS) MMO strategy game "Might & Magic: Heroes Kingdoms" in Asia, along with the social games "Castle & Co" and "The Smurfs & Co." The Smurfs & Co is Ubisoft’s most successful social game to date, reaching over 10 million users.

Prior to Ubisoft, Mow was in charge of business development and operations at Sitemasher, a Vancouver based startup developing a SaaS platform for building websites and apps. The company was later acquired by Salesforce.com for US$20M and rebranded as Site.com.

In 2011 Mow founded Pixelmatic with the mission to spark the imaginations of people everywhere through games. The focus of the firm is on creating engaging games that are truly social and encourage new connections to be made. He joined Blockstream as their CSO in April 2017.

In February 2018 Pixelmatic announced Infinite Fleet. A company blog post stated that in Infinite Fleet, “you are a commander in the United Sol Federation, a mighty military initiative charged with the defense of humanity. The year is 2110, and for most of the past decade our widespread galactic colonies have been obliterated by the relentless Atrox; merciless aliens that have slaughtered billions. You have been given command of a fleet of next-generation space battle fortresses to defeat the enemy. You must equip your fleet, explore the galaxy and join your comrades to turn the tide of the war.”

To spearhead the development of Infinite Fleet, Pixelmatic hired Jason Lee as the new Chief Creative Officer. Lee spent 13 years at Relic, most recently leading game design on the Age of Empires 4 project — a major upcoming title in the monumental Age of Empires series published by Microsoft.

Pixelmatic also hired veteran game designer Damon Gauthier, who previously worked for BioWare, the company behind the Dragon Age and Mass Effect series. Most recently Pixelmatic hired Stefan Haines, a game designer from Relic Entertainment, who joins several other Relic alumni.

Pixelmatic announced last month that they will be conducting a security token offering to raise capital for the Infinite Fleet game. The security token is called EXO and it is a non-voting, profit-sharing token offering 20% of net profits.

The company raised US$2.85M in the form of simple agreements or future tokens (SAFTs), with investors including Adam Back, Charlie Lee, Max Keiser and others. A small portion of the total US$3.1M raised was allocated to investors on investment platform BnkToTheFuture, US$250K.

A public sale of the firm’s token is expected in September via securities tokenization platform Liquid Securities which is still in development and in partnership with digital marketplace STOKR.

The game also has an in-game currency called the INF token. The token can be taken and purchased out of the game using a player’s crypto wallet and provides them with true ownership of any assets acquired in the game.

The INF token will be issued using the Liquid Network, a layer-two network built over the Bitcoin blockchain by Blockstream. The Liquid Network allows BTC to be pegged in and out from the base layer, while allowing for faster transaction times and confidential transactions, making it more suitable for high-frequency transactions of assets.

INF tokens are not sold by the game, instead, they are fairly distributed via in-game participation and events. As players would earn gold by completing quests in many games, in Infinite Fleet players can earn INF by participating in certain events and missions in the game.

This is a gamified version of proof-of-work, where players are potentially rewarded for their time spent in-game. INF has a limited total supply, and it is released slowly over time. This scarcity element of INF is designed to help prevent rampant inflation in the P2P marketplace.