Shiba Inu (SHIB), a Dogecoin-inspired decentralized cryptocurrency, just made a splash in the meme coin universe by landing a strategic partnership with the AAA game studio PlaySide.
In our previous piece on this subject, we had referenced a blog post by Shiba Inu’s lead developer, Shytoshi Kusama, to note that the project was gearing up to delve into the budding gaming sphere. That eventuality has now materialized in the form of a strategic partnership with PlaySide, the game studio behind popular titles such as Age of Darkness and Jumanji Epic Run. The studio’s press statement declared:
“PlaySide Studios Limited (ASX: PLY) (“PlaySide”), Australia’s largest publicly listed video games developer, is pleased to announce it has entered into a material fixed price work-for-hire development agreement with Shiba Inu Games ….”
While revealing details of the agreement, the press release noted:
“Under the agreement, PlaySide will provide production, design, engineering, art, user interface and experience development services to Shiba Inu Games on a new game title during the 8-month term of the agreement. The development of the game will draw from the art of the Shiba token’s ‘Shiboshi’ NFT and will feature card collection, strategy, and battle mechanics. The multiplayer Collectable Card Game (CCG) is planned to be deployed on multiple platforms with a proposed launch date in Q1 FY23.”
Crucially, the contract does not entail any revenue-sharing arrangement with Shiba Inu Games – an entirely new division within the ambit of the Shiba Inu project. Once fully developed, the mobile-based, Shiboshi-inspired game would be licensed to Shiba Inu’s developers for use on Shibarium, the native blockchain of the Shiba Inu project that is powered by the SHIB token. As a refresher, the term Shiboshi refers to the 10,000 unique Shiba Inu NFTs. Apart from landing PlaySide, the project has also enlisted the veteran game designer William David Volk, a former VP of technology at Activision.
This brings us to the crux of the matter. Up until now, Shiba Inu’s differentiating factors were limited to its native peer-to-peer crypto exchange, dubbed ShibaSwap. However, with its foray into NFTs and the gaming metaverse, Shiba Inu now offers far more utility than the other competing meme coins, including Dogecoin.
Moreover, as per Kusama’s blog post, the revenue derived from Shiba Inu Games’ in-app purchases will be used, in part, to burn SHIB and LEASH coins. This step has phenomenal repercussions as it paves the way for a sustainable increase in the SHIB coin’s price. Currently, the SHIB token’s only systemic supply burn occurs when the generic name of a Shiboshi NFT is changed for a $100 fee paid in SHIB coins, which are then burnt. Should the project start utilizing in-app revenue to burn supply, it would dramatically scale up ongoing efforts to reduce 549.007 trillion SHIB coins that remain in circulation.
Despite the promising nature of these developments, the SHIB token remains in the doldrums currently, after having failed to recover from the broad-based Omicron-induced crypto carnage over the past weekend. As an illustration, the token is down around 6 percent over the past 24 hours, currently trading at the $0.00003577 level. Interestingly, SHIB’s current price level entails a loss of 59 percent relative to the all-time high of $0.00008845 registered on the 28th of October.