Faraway

Faraway was founded by co-founders Alex Paley and Dennis Zdonov, who along with CTO Duc Nguyen have a long history in mobile game development. Paley and Zdonov were previously studio heads at game publisher Glu Mobile, and then shared the role of VP of product at Scopely, another mobile game developer

Faraway's first game, Mini Royale: Nations, is a free-to-play browser-based first-person shooter with a play-to-earn component. The game runs on the Solana blockchain, which makes it possible to use collectible NFTs for items such as weapon skins, character skins, accessories, land plots, and so on.

Here is what Alex Paley had to say about the blockchain decision:

«We're making a real-time multiplayer, hyper-social, ultra-complex economic game, right? Solana was literally the only chain that could actually allow us to make that type of game. It's super fast. It's super cheap, as far as transaction costs go. There's a ton of liquidity in the protocol, and there's a ton of ecosystem momentum».

According to Lightspeed partner Amy Wu, Faraway was originally formed around the idea of developing quality browser games without thinking about integrating into Web3. She believes that browser games are the best fit for the NFT-centric Web3 experience due to native crypto wallets support.

«There was a unique opportunity where the best team creating browser games was going to meet Web3,” Wu told Decrypt. “We really encouraged [Paley] to explore this path, and that was the basis on which we co-led the Series A.»

While NFTs and cryptos can be seen as a trendy addition to the game right now, Paley said Faraway has a core mentality that people only play a game if it's fun and their friends play it too. He believes that crypto components can only benefit from such an approach, stimulating community building and potentially rewarding the investment of time and money in games.

«You have [people] playing Axie that have never played a game in their life. They're playing it for hours a day, making a living in it, and forming these social bonds and communities in it,” he said. “[Blockchain gaming] greatly expands the definition of what and who is a gamer. I think once you devolve into that paradigm, you blow way past 100 million daily active users.»