Arbitrum Community Backs 200M ARB Plan To Attract Web3 Game Builders

The Arbitrum community is rallying behind a governance proposal advocating for allocating a large sum of ARB to foster the development of web3 games on the Ethereum Layer 2.

Community members have mobilized 35 million ARB to vote in favor of the Gaming Catalyst Program (GCP) proposal, which would earmark 200 million ARB ($250 million) as incentives for game developers over the next three years.

Just 101,400 Arbitrum have been mobilized in opposition to the proposal, however, at least 105.57 million ARB must be cast as votes for the proposal to reach quorum. Voting began on May 24 and is scheduled to end on June 7.

“The Gaming Catalyst Program (GCP) is designed to immediately expand awareness and adoption of Arbitrum/Orbit/Stylus by builders and players in the Gaming community,” the proposal said. “By offering support, incentives, and game industry-specific tools, Arbitrum can position itself as an attractive platform for game development, leading to a surge in high-quality gaming experiences on the network.”

The proposal previously passed a preliminary temperature check vote with nearly 97% support in March.

Arbitrum is the largest Ethereum Layer 2 by total value locked (TVL) with roughly $19.3 billion, according to L2beat. Arbitrum is also the fifth-ranked network by DeFi with $4.79 billion, according to DeFi Llama.

Gaming Catalyst Program

The proposal notes that Arbitrum’s DeFi sector previously enjoyed a “snowball”-like proliferation, asserting that the GCP could ignite similar growth for its web3 gaming ecosystem.

However, the proposal also acknowledges that Arbitrum is lagging behind several of its competitors who have actively courted the GameFi industry based on metrics including total games migrated, games launched, and total gamers.

“Arbitrum has had immense success in the decentralized finance vertical, but the branding of Arbitrum as a home for gamers and game builders is nascent,” the proposal said. “We believe that the same opportunity exists to attract the best builders that will in turn create sticky high-quality games that bring and retain new users within Arbitrum… Several L1s and L2s see this opportunity (most notably Solana, Cardano, Opstack, Immutable, Optimism, to name a few) and are moving to claim the builders with grants and investments.”

The GCP would allocate 160 million ARB to “onboarding and growth,” with the funds used to attract and provide ongoing support to publishers, studios, and independent developers building web3 gaming titles. This includes establishing the “Build Grants” program, with 25 million ARB set aside as grants for early-stage projects capped at 500,000 ARB each.

The remaining 40 million ARB would go towards infrastructure and tooling development.

The proposal also requests an additional $25 million to cover legal and compliance costs, marketing and infrastructure, and salaries for team members.

The incentives program would be overseen by the GCP council, a group of “trusted professionals with backgrounds ranging across gaming, venture, grant allocation, web3 technology, and DAO relations.” Council members would be elected by the DAO, and cannot represent GCP applicants or competing networks.

GameFi projects currently boast a combined capitalization of $22.7 billion, up 144% from $9.31 billion at the end of October, according to CoinGecko.