Animoca drives into crypto racing games with latest acquisition

Gaming and venture capital firm Animoca Brands has completed its landmark acquisition of Eden Games, publishers of the Gear.Club, the Test Drive series and other popular racing games.

Eden Games is a France-based firm that was founded in 1998. Engine Gaming and Media sold its 96% stake in the company to Animoca for $15.3 million last Thursday.

With the acquisition, Animoca plans to enhance its REVV Motorsport (REVV) ecosystem by taking a “Metaverse first approach” to new and existing gaming titles, as tweeted by Animoca chairman Yat Siu on Tuesday.

It also hopes to introduce new blockchain-based racing games. Eden Games has partnerships within the automotive industry with the likes of BMW, Bugatti, Porsche and others, which should help Animoca build out a more robust suite of games for racing game aficionados.

1/ Motorsports @REVV_Token$revv in the Metaverse just got a turbocharge with the extremely talented studio behind @needforspeed@F1MobileRacing and classics like Test Drive any many more @EdenGames has joined the @animocabrands family. #NFTGameshttps://t.co/LTTN7H3CY6

— Yat Siu (@ysiu) April 11, 2022

The REVV Motorsport ecosystem includes the eponymous racing games on the Ethereum scaling solution Polygon, MotoGP: Ignition, Formula E: High Voltage and Torque Drift. All the games are blockchain-based and integrate nonfungible tokens (NFTs).

By inserting its NFT products into sports, Animoca will be able to capitalize on Deloitte’s estimated $2 billion in sports NFT transactions in 2022.

Co-founder and chairman of Animoca Brands Yat Siu said in a Monday statement that the acquisition would “add value to the REVV community and the racing metaverse” by way of its many assets in the racing world.

Animoca has been busy building out its own racing game ecosystem and is looking to fill the void created by its F1 Delta Time game shutting down on March 15 after losing its license with the Formula 1 racing brand. There is no word yet on what new titles may be under development as a result of the new acquisition.

Related: Blue Chip and Metaverse NFTs propel growth of NFT Market, says Nansen report

F1 racing is a popular sport in the crypto industry with at least eight crypto companies, including exchange Binance, Crypto.com and the Ethereum scaling solution Fantom, currently sponsoring teams. From a business perspective, its popularity makes perfect sense, considering about one billion global fans are expected to view races throughout the 2022 season.

Animoca Brands is one of the most active investors in the NFT and Metaverse spaces. Its other holdings include The Sandbox (SAND) and Axie Infinity (AXS).