DigiDaigaku is a collection of 2,022 NFTs that stealth minted for free on August 10, 2022. Since then, the collection has reached over a 13 ETH floor price, exceeding the performance of the most successful free mint collections, such as goblintown.

Source: OpenSea.

The collection’s success lies largely in the NFTs being part of a new free-to-own game developed by Gabriel Leydon. Leydon co-founded one of the world’s most successful mobile games companies, Machine Zone, which excelled with free-to-play games and marketing before being sold to AppLovin in 2020 for $600 million.

Leydon has now re-entered the blockchain gaming space after the first attempt in 2018. This time with Limit Break, for which he secured $200 million in funding to develop new blockchain games. His stated goal is to kill free-to-play and pay-to-win games and replace them with free-to-own games. NFTs are at the heart of the venture.

The DigiDaigaku collection is the first part of Leydon’s plan. These NFTs will likely act as “factories,” producing in-game assets and providing access to airdrops. If so, DigiDaigakus should provide a reliable income stream for holders. 

In part, Leydon’s success in free-to-play and pay-to-win models revolved around a combination of gameplay, marketing, and in-app purchases, which he explained in a podcast. Making game items easy to purchase to an audience of millions meant only a tiny fraction of players needed to generate huge sales.

Now Leydon wants to turn the established gaming value system around and let the players make that money at a massive scale while Limit Break takes a small percentage. Players will be incentivized to do much of the hard work that holders of the genesis NFTs capitalize on.

Beyond the free genesis mint, the next step in this process looks set for Friday, when an airdrop for DigiDaigaku is expected. Leydon’s Twitter timeline contains several recent posts critiquing prior land sales by other teams, so it’s interesting to see what an airdrop will look like.

Previously, projects that have consistently delivered value to holders, such as Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), have seen their floor prices rise and hold firm. As Leydon’s mindset is that giving more away now will result in bigger future profits, an airdrop of land or something with a high perceived value doesn’t seem unimaginable. He seems set to follow the BAYC playbook.

What’s more, Leydon has access to a huge number of loyal gamers that he understands and will no doubt be trying to onboard into the Web 3 space. Still, the sole existence of a substantial user base doesn’t guarantee success, given the difficulty of Web 3 onboarding.

Whatever the outcome, the aim will be to generate hype around the idea of potential earnings. On that basis, there’s a chance Leydon will go big with the value of whatever holders receive on Friday, causing prices to rise further. It might be even the team propping the price of the airdropped items.

Combined with his track record and the DigiDaigaku’s status as factory assets, there’s plenty of reason to believe that over a longer period, the 13 ETH floor value can be recouped, and gains can be made if you can afford it. Otherwise, trying to get airdropped items might be worth it.

Overall, DigiDaigaku is clearly not intended to be a short-lived project. Its founder has outstanding credentials in the game space and plans to change the way value is created with the game that this collection is part of. 

Even if this project isn’t to your taste as an investor, it is at least well-worth knowing about. After all, if the “free-to-own” model works, it will find its way into other, more affordable projects.

Until next time

Disclosure: At the time of writing, the author held several NFTs, ETH, and other cryptocurrencies. Read our trading policy to see how SIMETRI protects its members against insider trading.