Zynga’s ex-web3 team D20 deals out Royal Nutz Poker Club

Two weeks after unveiling itself as a separate organization called D20 Labs, Zynga’s former web3 team has announced Royal Nutz Poker Club as its first standalone title. 

Coming out of Zynga, the team is obviously building on the success of its multi-billion dollar franchise Zynga Poker. Indeed, D20 argues that poker is a great bridge to unite users from all sets of gaming, including offline, online, and onchain.

To that end, the first stage is a teaser event, which will be rolled out exclusively to holders of its Sugartown platform’s Ora NFTs. 

Following that, the game will launch to selected partner communities, with the first being ApeCoin holders. Players will get passes airdropped in both soulbound and tradable versions. Access will also be gated by the same energy system used for Sugartown’s demos, which is generated by staking your NFTs.

Overall, D20 hopes Royal Nutz Poker Club will synergize social casino and blockchain assets. However, significantly, this will be done without getting players to wager real money so D20 won’t have to get expensive and time-consuming gambling licenses.

Instead, success in the game will be controlled via leaderboards, with prizes provided through sponsored tournaments.

Launching on Coinbase’s Ethereum-based L2 Base, Royal Nutz Poker Club will support mobile and browser.