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Crown Weekly: Season 8 is Here!

The time has come to turn a new page — Welcome to Season 8, everyone!

Honestly, it’s always good that there is a day to catch our breath between the intensity of Derby Day and Monday morning. Still, it’s particularly what the doctor ordered following the busiest weekend in Photo Finish™ LIVE history.

From undercard races to record-breaking horse pick pools and a well-known stable winning its first-ever Virtual Kentucky Derby title, Saturday night had a little of everything. That being said, the week that preceded the season’s biggest race was just as important, and, in its own right, warrants a solid review.

Let’s explore the past and align before hitting the Season 8 tracks.

Must Read: Season 8 Balance Updates

Before we get into the past week, let’s toss out a proper ICYMI regarding a blog Third Time CEO and Founder Ian Cummings dropped on Sunday night that’s chock-full of Season 8 platform tweaks, informational tidbits, and all-around important news.

As much as we want you to keep reading here, if you find yourself reading this blog and haven’t yet had a chance to read the Balance Update article, do that, then come back here.

We’ll all collectively wait for you.

Are we all on the same page? Shall we proceed? Good! On with it.

DeStables Dominates the Kentucky Derby

Season 7 finished with what we can confidently say was the biggest 120 minutes of racing Photo Finish™ has ever seen, with the two hours of races climaxing with an exhilarating Virtual Kentucky Derby sprint dominated by the DeStables crew and their racehorse, The Downgrade. 

As if The Downgrade taking home the Season 7 title of Road to the Roses champion wasn’t reason enough to down a celebratory  ‘shoey,’  in addition to the $940 first place prize, DeStables also hit it big in the horse pick pool, bringing their combined winnings to ~$1,400.

‘W’s’ in the chat, indeed. The DeStables Season 7 art was sick.

Third Time Games Completes Seed+ Round

By now, you"ve seen the tweet.

No, not the tweet announcing that Third Time Games has added more rocket fuel to the Photo Finish™ rocket ship in the form of a freshly completed two-million dollar seed+ round of funding — although that was a banger. We’re talking about CEO and Founder Ian Cummings’s post detailing the trials and tribulations of life on the fundraising trail this year.

The tweet and accompanying blog post received much attention, particularly from other leaders in the Web3 space who shared similar experiences. 

If you haven’t read the full story of how our fearless leader sealed the deal on a round of funding amidst serious VC headwinds, read the full story in the community blog here.

Third Time Entertainment

Third Time in the News

Look, Mom, we’re in the newspaper!

Below is a list of just a few outlets that covered Third Time Games closing a successful Seed+ round of funding. Expect to see more this week, as we’ve only begun making the rounds.

After Dark Gets Brighter 

With a few seasons of the After Dark series now in the books, we can say it’s been a raging success with the community. Between entries and total wagers, it’s one of the busiest slots of every week’s schedule.

Whether After Dark is something you lean into with a glass of whiskey after a long day at work or something you wake up to on the other side of the world with a dark cup of coffee, it’s clear that people love some hot-juiced-Photo-Finish™-action.

With that in mind, we’re happy to tease that even more saucy After Dark action is coming, with additional races and fun being particularly added to Dough Boy’s Tuesday night show in the coming weeks. That’s in addition to the announcement that After Dark pick pools will see an increased horse subsidy.

Do you want to be a part of an After Dark show? Reach out to one of the hosts, Dough Boy, or Mo, and let them know you want to get involved.

How to Shop For a Horse

Regarding advice on successfully navigating the many aspects of Photo Finish™ gameplay, there’s no better source than fellow community members, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a more thoughtful contributor than Jeff Opdyke, aka, Digital Roamad, who has been a stable owner for just a few weeks.

Jeff recently put together a fantastic and thorough How to Buy a Horse tutorial, perfect for anyone looking to get started in the game but isn’t too keen on where to start.  Give it a watch!

How to Buy and Stake Photo Finish™ NFTs and $CROWN

When David Chapman takes to Medium to post an instructional blog about Photo Finish™, it requires a spotlight to ensure it doesn’t get scrolled by on the timeline. Add a stellar deep dive into How to Buy and Stake Photo Finish™ NFTs and $CROWN to his library of must-read resources.

If you’re a new player wondering anything, reading through David’s Horse Racing Capital Medium blog is a must.

Season 8: Stake and Bake

Welcome to Season 8 – let"s stake and bake!

It"s time to choose your Photo Finish™ adventure —  which track will you stake your heaviest $CROWN bag on in hopes of yielding the highest $DERBY rewards, and which of your stables horses will leave the racetracks to enter the breeding barn?

With just a few seasons left to close the year, the choices made now will shape your stable and set it up for success in 2024.

If it seems as if we say every season gets better than the last, it’s because, thus far, it’s been true. And that’s exactly how it’s supposed to be.