By James McQuillan

Untamed Planet – a company dedicated to offering players a special mixture of unique gaming and nature, has partnered up with Animoca Brands to bring its gaming startup to a global audience. Inspired by a desire to conserve wildlife, the duo will work together to develop and publish Untamed Planets ‘Untamed Metaverse’ – which aims to accomplish the dev’s goals in one unique title.

The partnership coincides with a highly successful Series A funding round, led by Animoca Brands, which brought in $24.3 million. Before this, the company had secured funding from Nick Molnar of Afterpay fame.

As a game, Untamed Metaverse is all about being a highly immersive, 3D experience while allowing players to explore digital versions of the wild landscapes of earth. While this merits plenty of exploration on its own, each of these lands provides a wealth of quests, NFT assets, and the opportunity to meet like-minded types, to form communities of those passionate about protecting nature.

The added plus for players is that all of their efforts in-game are matched with real-world action. This economic system is made possible through the team’s ‘Play-to-Protect’ model, which has already been tested within the game’s incarnation on Roblox.

Along with this, a core element of Untamed Planet’s mission is its commitment to a “50% profit share for Nature”, whereby the company donates, invests, or distributes a minimum of half of each project’s profits to on the ground conservation initiatives and the local communities supporting them. Some projects within the Untamed Planet ecosystem allot over 50% and up to 100% of all proceeds to conservation.

In its earlier Roblox test, it clocked 30 million plays from 2021, with half of all profits from in-game transactions going to fund major organisations dedicated to wildlife conservation.

Untamed Planet’s primary conservation partner is WildArk, a registered non-profit organization that works with dozens of other organizations worldwide to support community-led conservation efforts and secure space for wildlife and biodiversity.

Sustainability and NFTs
Along with its gaming experience, one of the main ways that players can earn and support the environment is through the Untamed Planets NFT series’. The first of these collections will be minted on the Solana blockchain.

Much akin to other blockchains and protocols, Solana offers low emissions and high levels of efficiency. For example, according to the team, one transaction on Solana uses less energy than 3 Google searches. Minting NFTs, meanwhile, use less than a third of the energy of using an LED light for an hour.

The first collaboration by Animoca Brands and Untamed Planet is an NFT collection of animal avatars based on the work of world-renowned photographer David Yarrow, who has donated six of his original wildlife photos. The NFTs will go on sale in May and all proceeds will be donated to wildlife conservation efforts. CNN recently profiled the work of David Yarrow.