The German government has allocated $1.2 million in funding for a metaverse game being developed by Flying Sheep Studios. The company, based in Cologne, will use the funds for the development of a game called Star Life, which will also include blockchain elements in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
Flying Sheep Studios, a Cologne-based metaverse startup, has recently announced that it raised $1.2 million from the German government. The funds raised will be used to develop an online metaverse game called Star Life, a multimedia online role-playing experience.
The funding, which came from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, is part of the allocation that the federal government uses to support interactive experiences. This raise has allowed the company to hire an additional workforce to accelerate the completion of the game.
Thomas Rössig, managing director of Flying Sheep Studios, stated this kind of support is important to grow a national metaverse and video game industry. He explained:
We are grateful to the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action for their support and trust in our project. This funding demonstrates the federal budget for video games working as intended, fostering the development of cutting-edge technical know-how made in Germany.
Star Life, the game that will be developed with the funds raised, will be a free-to-play-anywhere game that will focus on cooperation and socialization between diverse users, which will be part of the game’s virtual metaverse.
The game will also integrate blockchain elements, with NFTs being items that will be able to be transported to other games and metaverses. This will allow users to have more control over how these optional elements will be managed on the platform and even the opportunity of establishing monetization options — although the introduction of a digital token for the game has not been announced yet.
While reports predict that the metaverse will face a cooldown phase during 2023, some countries have taken the responsibility of funding these projects directly. This is the case with South Korea, which recently announced an investment of $51 million in local metaverse-related projects. However, private companies like Meta have recently pivoted to put more funds into the artificial intelligence field than in the metaverse industry.
