If you've been in the NFT space over the last six months, you've probably come across DigiDaigaku founder, Gabriel Leydon.
Formerly the founder of mobile gaming studio Machine Zone, which launched several top-grossing games (including Game of War and Mobile Strike), Leydon was once referred to as “the man on the Iron Throne of gaming."
With bold marketing tactics and a boisterous Twitter personality, the founder of Limit Break burst onto the Web3 scene in August with a free stealth drop of the anime-style project DigiDaigaku — quickly forming a bustling community and speedrunning to the top of charts as an instant player in the market.
With an ambitious DigiDaigaku Super Bowl commercial coming on Feb. 14, all eyes are on the ecosystem this month.
Here is everything you need to know about the project:
DigiDaigaku Launch 🚀
Leydon publicly announced the launch of his Web3 gaming company Limit Break with fellow Machine Zone co-founder Hal Nakagawa in early August, with backing from Buckley Ventures, Standard Crypto, and Paradigm Ventures amongst other investors.
A few days later, Leydon released the DigiDaigaku Genesis NFTs via a free, stealth mint — with the floor price quickly surging to over a 2 ETH floor on the first day of trading.
In late August, the terms of the raise were released — a whopping $200 million — sending the floor price to as high as 16 ETH.
"After a decade of pushing 'Free to Play' games to their limits, our founders have spent the past year building Limit Break to replace F2P using web3," Leydon tweeted.
What Is DigiDaigaku?
The DigiDaigaku collection consists of 2,222 female anime characters. As the 'Genesis' in the ecosystem, these act as "factory" assets — receiving free airdrops and expanding the community from within.
Breaking Down the DigiDaigaku Collections 📜
Aside from the Genesis NFTs, DigiDaigaku has utilized free airdrops and burning experiences to progress the storyline and create new areas of entry into the project.
Spirits and Heroes
The first free airdrop launched in early September, with Genesis NFTs receiving matching Spirits. The new collection is the 'core ingredient' for creating Heroes, with the ability to send different combinations of Genesis / Spirit NFTs to create different bloodlines. Spirits are burned during the questing process to create a hero.
From Lucky Trader's article on the airdrop:
- Each Digi Heroes will have one of three bloodlines: Rogue, Warrior, or Royal.
- The Royal bloodline is the most powerful and is created by combining two matching DigiDaigaku Genesis NFTs. These "ultimately yield the greatest reward."
- The Warrior bloodline is "strong but impure." It is created by combining two different, non-matching DigiDaigaku Genesis NFTs. Warriors are "strong and yield powerful rewards."
- The Rogue bloodline is the weakest and "highly volatile." It is created by using a Spirit without a Digi NFT and yields "extremely random rewards."
Dark Spirits, Villains, and Super Villains
Following the reveal of Heroes, another airdrop was announced — with Genesis and Hero (Royal and Warrior) NFT holders receiving a new collection called Dark Spirits.
Similar to the Spirit drop, the Dark Spirits are used to craft Potions that can be combined with another new collection of Villains to create Super Villains. Villains and Super Villains have several different classes and attributes, with the combination of NFTs determining the output. A lengthy recipe list is available, showing exactly what can be crafted from each asset.
There are five classes of Villains:
- MYTHIC (Best Super Villain)
- OYABUN (Super Villain)
- SAIKO-KOMON (Super Villain)
- WAKAGASHIRA (Super Villain)
- SHATEIGASHIRA (Super Villain)
- KYODAI (upgraded Villain)
- KOBUN (base Villain)
Each Villain also has three attributes that are impacted by the Potion + Dark Spirit combination:
- Enhancements (4o different special traits, i.e. Fangs, Golden Horns, Fire Hand)
- Weapons (70 variations, various tier levels)
- Calligraphy (4o unique colors/styles)
Masked Villains
In late January users were able to claim their unrevealed (masked) Villains. A seven-day questing period allows users to combine a Masked Villain with the crafted potions to reveal their Villain or Super Villain.
DigiDaigaku Super Bowl Launch 🏟
The next activation for DigiDaigaku will be on a global stage — with the project spending $6.5 million for a commercial spot during this year's Super Bowl on Feb. 14. The ad will include a QR code to apply to mint a Dragon, the next collection in the ecosystem.
“We’re doing an extremely small collection, especially compared to the audience — something like 50 million people are going to see the commercial,” Leydon said in an interview with VentureBeat. “There will be a QR code on-screen. And anybody can scan it and then mint an NFT from the DigiDaigaku collection. I think this is going to be a really big deal because I think it’s going to change television advertising.”
Leydon is no stranger to the Super Bowl stage — previously running high-profile spots for both Game of War and Mobile Strike during his time at Machine Zone.
The project released a teaser for the upcoming commercial, and is currently running contests for Whitelist opportunities ahead of the mint on Feb. 14.
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Update: DigiDaigaku's commercial ran on Super Bowl Sunday, in a polarizing night for the NFT space. 4,000 Dragon Eggs were available to claim via a QR code in the ad, which were gone instantly — with the vast majority of users getting redirected to Gabriel Leydon's Twitter account to enter into a raffle whitelist for the remaining supply.
The Dragon Eggs are currently unrevealed, and have seen over 1,500 ETH of volume on the secondary market. Leydon hailed the commercial as a success, despite an overwhelmingly negative sentiment from the broader NFT space.
BTC + Digi ⚙️
Following the Super Bowl commercial, Leydon teased a free Bitcoin NFT for holders of DigiDaigaku Genesis NFTs — stating that Limit Break was in the process of setting up a Bitcoin node.
Collaborations 🤝
In addition to the core NFT collections above, DigiDaigaku has also partnered with several other projects in the space. Adventure Key' NFTs were airdropped to Genesis holders, which allowed access to special perks within the games/ecosystems.
Castaways, a blockchain-based island survival sandbox game, was the first of the Adventure Keys — with holders able to both use their Digi avatar in-game, become eligible for airdrops, and compete for specific prizes.
Another partnership included the popular NFT RPG EtherOrcs, which included a "Digi Dungeon" and prizes which will be usable within the EtherOrcs gaming system.
In March, Gabriel Leydon announced that Limit Break had acquired FreeNFT, which he hailed as the '#1 platform for free NFTs'.
FreeNFT acts as a launchpad, offering projects marketing and tech to grow. Leydon noted that the platform will still be free for developers to launch with, and Limit Break's AdventureERC721 smart contract and programmable royalty solutions will be available to projects on the platform.
The founder also hinted that there will be opportunities for DigiDaigaku holders to participate in upcoming FreeNFT launches.
Where Can I Learn More About DigiDaigaku?
