Decentral Games

Decentral Games is a play-and-own gaming studio and DAO best known for building ICE Poker, the first metaverse-native poker experience, launched inside Decentraland in October 2021. Founded in 2019, the project pioneered a 'play-and-own' economic model in which players earn ICE tokens by completing daily poker challenges and climbing a competitive leaderboard, rather than simply wagering currency in a traditional online casino. Access to ranked play requires an ICE Wearable NFT, which players can either purchase outright or borrow through a delegation system that lets NFT holders lend their wearables to other players in exchange for a share of earnings — a rental mechanic that became one of the more widely copied primitives in early GameFi. The studio operates as a decentralized autonomous organization governed in large part by its community and closely tied to the Decentraland ecosystem, where its casino-style venues (originally branded Decentral Games Casino) were among the most-visited destinations in the metaverse during 2021-2022. Decentral Games raised a $5 million funding round announced in June 2021, backed by Digital Currency Group along with Collab+Currency, Metaverse Ventures, Bitscale Capital, Cluster Capital, and AU21 Capital, and separately received a strategic investment directly from Decentraland to support development of its metaverse poker products. The project also received ecosystem grants, including a $1 million MANA grant approved by the Decentraland DAO in 2022 to fund liquidity-provider rewards. Leadership includes Miles Anthony as the public-facing CEO, with Michael Ryan de Taboada overseeing operations and investor relations. Like much of the play-to-earn category, Decentral Games has scaled down significantly from its 2021-2022 peak as metaverse gaming activity cooled industry-wide, though ICE Poker has continued operating as one of the longer-running blockchain gaming products tied to Decentraland.