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Blockchain game Illuvium goes mainstream with looming Epic Games Store listing

November 8, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Blockchain

Blockchain games have historically battled to gain mainstream attention, but Illuvium’s listing on the Epic Games Store could change the narrative.

Blockchain-based game Illuvium is set to tap into an audience of millions of PC and mobile gamers with its upcoming listing on the Epic Games Store, which is home to massively popular titles like Fortnite.

Illuvium, an interoperable blockchain game developed by Illuvium Labs, will feature on Epic’s store from Nov. 28, following several months of background work to get the title to meet its standards.

Speaking exclusively to Cointelegraph ahead of the Epic launch, Illuvium co-founder Kieran Warwick outlines the evolution of the game in order to cater to a mainstream audience and comply with the platform’s legal and compatibility requirements:

“The result of these efforts has not only earned Illuvium a place on a leading gaming platform but has also evolved our product.”

The game was developed using Unreal Engine 5 on the Immutable X network. Its beta launch on Epic Games will feature three different game genres set within the Illuvium universe.

This includes Overworld, an open-world exploration game and “creature capturer reminiscent of beloved classics,” an auto battler strategy game called Arena and Zero, and a mobile and desktop city-builder that ties into the other titles. Warwick says its approach of building separate genres and game modes aims to attract a wider audience of gamers.

“By launching three different games in three different genres, we have significantly increased our addressable market. The only issue is it has taken much longer to get to this point,” Warwick adds.

Given that blockchain games featuring nonfungible token (NFT) elements have struggled to break into the mainstream, Warwick’s team has adapted its approach to onboard more users. He highlights the barrier to entry for non-Web3 native gamers as a key reason for the slow adoption of blockchain games:

“One of the most frustrating things about NFT games is the notion that you need a wallet and a ton of money just to try out the game. We have removed the need for wallets, and it’s free to play. We think this is the only way to get mainstream adoption.”

As Cointelegraph recently reported, Web3 venture capital firms like Animoca Brands have highlighted the hesitance of mainstream game publishers to list games that incorporate Web3 infrastructure.

Animoca Brands CEO Robby Yung previously suggested that mainstream players remain uncertain about the inherent implications, fearing that Web3 integration would bypass existing business models that rely on fees for distribution.

Warwick echoes these sentiments, saying that this prevailing attitude is influenced by a variety of factors. One factor is game design integrity, with some critics suggesting that including NFTs could lead to pay-to-win mechanics or negatively affect the game design by prioritizing monetization over player experience.

Regulatory concerns are another consideration, with Warwick highlighting that blockchain technology and NFTs remain “in a gray area in many regions.”

“Games with NFT functionality could run into trouble with regulators that could affect their viability and legality.”

The volatility of cryptocurrency markets and NFTs is another hurdle that concerns mainstream publishers, as well as the perceived prevalence of fraud.

Nevertheless, Illuvium’s upcoming listing bodes well for the wider blockchain gaming industry. Warwick describes it as a major milestone as their title steps onto the same platform as some of the most popular mainstream games in recent years.

“This is a huge step forward. People have been saying for years that Web3 gaming is the next big thing in the crypto space,” Warwick concludes.

Web3 gaming investors have adopted a more measured approach to backing early-stage studios building blockchain games over the past year. This has been necessitated by the effects of a lengthy cryptocurrency bear market, which has called for greater due diligence from industry venture capitalists.

Magazine: Blockchain games take on the mainstream: Here’s how they can win

Epic Games lays off 830 staff, citing ‘unrealistic’ metaverse ambitions

September 29, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

“Spending way more than we earn” — CEO Tim Sweeney blamed job cuts on major structural changes to the company’s economics.

Epic Games, the company behind Fortnite, has slashed 16% of its workforce — approximately 830 staff — after unrealistic expectations of metaverse-inspired revenue caused it to spend “way more” money than it had been earning.

"We concluded that layoffs are the only way and that doing them now and on this scale will stabilize our finances," wrote CEO Tim Sweeney in a Sept. 29 memo sent to Epic Games staff.

“I had long been optimistic that we could power through this transition without layoffs, but in retrospect, I see that this was unrealistic,” Sweeney added.

Epic Games have laid off 870 employees today across multiple departments, a whopping 16% of their workforce. Those laid off will receive 6 months severance

"For awhile now, we've been spending way more money than we earn, investing in the next evolution of Epic and Fortnite" pic.twitter.com/4W6Pn31CU3
— Jake Lucky (@JakeSucky) September 28, 2023

While Sweeney credited the company’s recent growth to the Fortnite Creator program — which allows players to build and sell their own content in-game for a 40% cut — the shift has resulted in lower margins.

"Success with the creator ecosystem is a great achievement, but it means a major structural change to our economics."

In addition to the aforementioned layoffs, Sweeney said another 250 employees would also be leaving Epic Games, as the company announced it would be selling the recently-acquired music website Bandcamp and spinning off its marketing company SuperAwesome, a child-safety tech firm that joined Epic in 2020.

Notably, soon-to-be-former employees of Epic Games will be offered six months of pay, and those residing in the United States, Canada and Brazil can expect six months of paid healthcare as well.

Aside from Fortnite, which boasts some 400 million registered users, Epic Games also runs the Unreal Engine. The video game development suite powers titles like God of War and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.

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Apple’s 30% tax rules will stay for now, crypto and NFTs may have to wait

August 10, 2023 Coin Telegraph

App Store

A Supreme Court judge has rejected a request from Epic Games that would've immediately loosened Apple's App Store payment rules, to the potential benefit of crypto and NFT apps.

Crypto app developers hoping for a loosening of Apple's App Store rules will have to wait longer after a United States Supreme Court held off on granting a request to let apps direct users to payments outside of Apple’s ecosystem.

An Aug. 9 decision from Justice Elena Kagan declined to let a federal appeals court decision take immediate effect as Epic had asked — with no explanation for the decision.

Not surprisingly, the Supreme Court (by decision of Justice Kagan, who is the SCOTUS judge to whom such 9th Cir. matters are assigned) denied Epic Games' motion to enforce the injunction it won in district court 2 years ago.

Epic was right; legal standard favored Apple.

1/3 pic.twitter.com/UnpnphgapG
— Florian Mueller (@FOSSpatents) August 9, 2023

In April, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled Apple violated California’s competition laws by not allowing apps to direct users to non-Apple linked payment solutions.

The ruling meant that developers such as Epic Games would be able to funnel users to alternative payment methods, giving them an option that circumvents Apple’s 30% tax on in-app payments.

The 30% Apple tax has also been a hurdle for crypto firms, including those that want to offer iOS users the ability to purchase non-fungible tokens.

At the moment, there exists no means to buy an NFT on an app listed on Apple’s App Store other than through its in-app payments system, which charges a 30% commission rate and only allows purchases using fiat.

Apple has REALLY tight rules regarding any app that is used on their devices. typically they require a 30% tax on all financial transactions, but bc that's impossible with crypto the way it is, they just ban the apps that have direct links/usage to swapping and trading.
— Caleeeb (@adacaleeeb) August 7, 2023

Apple’s guidelines don’t allow apps to take crypto to unlock app functionality or make in-app purchases using crypto.

This has led to most crypto apps offering only limited functionality, such as being able to view balances and assets only. Crypto exchange apps are unaffected.

Justice Kagan’s rejection of Epic’s request means Apple will get at least a few more months of reprieve from the ruling as it plans a Supreme Court appeal to the decision.

The Ninth Circuit ruling will come into effect if the Supreme Court refuses Apple’s appeal, however.

In its argument to lift the appeals court hold Epic claimed it applied a “lax legal standard” in granting the stay which would injure Epic and “innumerable consumers and other app developers for a significant period of time.”

Apple hit back saying the stay has been in place for two years already and doesn’t apply to Epic anyway. Apple booted Epic’s Fortnite off the App Store in August 2020 for attempting to workaround Apple’s in-app payments system.

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Immutable’s Gods Unchained launches on Epic Games Store

June 22, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

The trading card game, which features NFT cards, will now be available to Epic Games’ 230 million customers.

Immutable Games’ Web3 trading card game Gods Unchained is now listed on the Epic Games Store and is available to its 230 million customers, according to a June 21 announcement.

Gods Unchained is a collectible trading card game similar to Hearthstone or Magic: The Gathering Arena but with cards players can own and trade. Each card is represented by a nonfungible token (NFT) on the Ethereum layer-2 network Immutable X. The game was released in June 2019 and grew its player base over the next two years to reach 80,000 weekly active players in January 2022.

The Epic Games Store is a digital game distribution platform similar to Steam or GOG.com. Over 230 million PC gamers use Epic Games to find new games to play, according to the developer’s “2022 Year in Review” post from March.

*Epic Games Store homepage. Source: Epic Games*

Daniel Paez, executive producer of Gods Unchained, sees the Epic Games listing as a pivotal moment in the game’s history. “It is hard to overestimate the significance of Gods Unchained’s launch on Epic Games Store, one of the largest PC gaming platforms in the world,” he stated. “We are extremely excited to present our game to a completely new and truly massive audience of traditional PC gamers and TCG enthusiasts.”

The listing comes at a time when Web3 publishers continue to counter hostile actions from Steam, the world’s largest PC game distributor. In October 2021, Steam announced that Web3 games were not welcome on its platform while also delisting Age of Rust due to the perks the game offered to holders of its NFTs.

In March, former MetaMask team members released a rival distribution platform called Hyperplay to combat Steam’s action. Hyperplay provides access to the Epic Games and GOG.com stores from within its interface and offers its own list of Web3 titles. On June 8, the Hyperplay team raised $12 million to further the platform’s development and expand its reach.

Nike teases upcoming ‘Airphoria’ NFT sneaker hunt on Fortnite

June 17, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

In a short promotional video, Nike’s logo for its web3 platform .SWOOSH features alongside the logos for Epic Games’ Unreal Engine and Fortnite game.

Footwear and apparel giant Nike has hinted that it may soon drop a collection of sneaker nonfungible tokens in Epic Games’ widely popular online game Fortnite.

The move would mark a potentially huge opportunity for Web3 adoption by traditional gamers, given that Fortnite has had more than 242.9 million active players over the past 30 days, according to Active Player.

Great catch with the @dotSWOOSH reference. @FortniteGame integration would be the biggest thing that's ever happened with NFTs
— Jalazo.eth (@nft4dummies) June 16, 2023

In a June 16 announcement across Nike’s social media channels, the firm stated that on June 20 the “ultimate Sneakerhunt begins.”

In a brief accompanying video, Fortnite’s logo and Nike’s Air Max logo are featured front and center amongst a backdrop of floating clouds in the sky.

The video then transitions to reveal the name of the sneaker hunt, “Airphoria” and concludes by showing Nike’s logo for its web3 platform .SWOOSH alongside the logo for Epic Games’ Unreal Engine.

On 6.20 the ultimate Sneakerhunt begins. ️️ pic.twitter.com/QgMyA1uXRT
— Nike (@Nike) June 16, 2023

Details are sparse at this stage, however, members of the NFT community speculated that Nike may have built an NFT-related game using Fornite Creative 2.0, which essentially enables users to create their virtual island game maps using Fortnite assets.

“I remember that Fortnite recently launched Fortnite Creative 2.0, which has a strong self-built map mode similar to creating games on ROBLOX. I guess Nike may have used this mode to create a game. Two years ago, Nike also created a game on ROBLOX, but it was not combined with NFT[s] at that time,” noted @clone_news_cn.

While it is not 100% confirmed if NFTs will be a part of Airphoria, .SWOOSH’s involvement would suggest that it is on the cards, while Epic Games also holds a friendly stance towards NFT gaming.

Nike’s NFT unit has been ramping up its efforts to edge its way into the traditional gaming space of late.

On June 1, .SWOOSH announced that its NFTs will be integrated into games developed by EA Sports, the company behind the hugely successful FIFA soccer game franchise, among others. However it has not been confirmed which EA Sports games will eventually have Nike NFTs in them.

EA SPORTS @dotSWOOSH https://t.co/hNxxdaMgRL pic.twitter.com/NH8vp0fWoQ
— EA SPORTS (@EASPORTS) June 1, 2023

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Nifty News: Pixel Penguin accused of ‘charity rug,’ Epic adds new NFT games and more

June 1, 2023 Coin Telegraph

3AC

Epic Games is planning to list NFT games on its store, while the second 3AC NFT auction is slated to take place this month at Sotheby’s.

The Pixel Penguin alleged ‘charity project rug’

Nonfungible-token (NFT) project Pixel Penguin has caused a stir this week in what a blockchain investigator ZachXBT has alleged is a “charity project rug.”

The project quietly launched in February, but drew a lot of attention on May 31 following a Twitter thread from Web3 influencer Andrew Wang.

I woke up today to see one of my friends trending on twitter, @Hopeexist1. she made a collection to help herself battle cancer and some awesome web3 people spotlighted her today, so i'd like to add to it pic.twitter.com/Fr5Mcu26eR
— andrew wang (@andr3w) May 30, 2023

Wang claimed his friend Sarah, known as Hopeexist1 online, was the creator of Pixel Penguins, and noted that she had “made a collection to help herself battle cancer.”

At a $13 mint price, Wang claimed that 20% of the profits would go to charity, while the other 80% would go to Hopeexist1’s supposed cancer treatment.

“I'll put my rep on the line to say this is for real amidst all the scams in our space,” said Wang, adding:“I speak with her art teacher often when she's gone for treatment and he says she's the best student he's ever had, that her talent is too precious, that she must survive.”

Following this, Pixel Penguins NFTs promptly sold out, with the floor price shooting up from 0.0099 Ether (ETH) to around 0.0126 ETH worth roughly $130.However, members of the NFT community then did some digging and alleged that the creator had been profiting from selling stolen art in the past, and was potentially lying about having cancer.

Within a couple hours, the collection sold out and began trending #1 on OpenSea.

With this much attention, people started to dig deeper into who this person actually was.

Turns out, they had been selling stolen art and even lying about having cancer.

(3/6) pic.twitter.com/l8rbIcaiti
— Arcanic (@ArcanicNFT) May 31, 2023

ZachXBT then found the Pixel Penguin smart contract containing more than $117,000 worth of ETH, and followed that funds as it was siphoned off to two new wallet addresses.

In the aftermath, Hopeexist1 then deleted their Twitter account and went AWOL. The floor price of the NFTs has since plummeted to 0.004 ETH, or $7.

Today @andr3w supported a charity project rug by @hopeexist1 someone supposedly battling cancer causing the project to mint out.

“I’ll put my rep on the line to say this is for real amidst all the scams in our space”

It turns out she stole the art and deactivated her account. pic.twitter.com/q4HivGBLMY
— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) May 31, 2023

Epic Games Store to add more blockchain games

Fortnite developers Epic Games will soon release two new blockchain-games on its store, adding to the five that are already up and available to play.

@Elrond_Mafia's "Project Red" is a mafia-themed FPS game with AAA graphics in a open world.

Free-to-play all the way.

Buying a Mobster(NFT) will level up your game.

(3/9)https://t.co/Au1ArcXh8n
— MANI (@Mani_NFTz) May 27, 2023

One of the upcoming games is called Defimons, a free-to-play Pokemon-inspired multiplayer RPG with turn-based combat.

The game will have an in-game currency and NFT battle monster characters bearing the same name as the title. The Epic Games Store doesn’t list a release date.

Welcome to Defimons,

️ Explore an ever expanding world
Battle and tame monsters
⚒️ Craft items and farm crops
Free to play MMORPG

Check out our trailer and join the journey!#PixelArt #Defimons #IndieDev pic.twitter.com/EYL9HWleiE
— Defimons (@TheDefimons) May 8, 2023

The other blockchain game is called Project Red, which appears to have open-world elements inspired by games such as Grand Theft Auto and Saints Row, alongside a first-person-shooter game mode as well.

The early snippets of the game reveal people will need to buy Mobster NFTs to navigate through the higher levels and engage with the play-to-earn elements of the game.

Epic Games initially listed Blankos Block Party as the first Web3 game on its store back in September 2022, and while these types of games still receive strong scepticism from many traditional gamers, the firm isn’t backing away from this space.

Epic Games recently indicated to Axios in March that it plans to add roughly 20 new blockchain games over the course of 2023 and early 2024.

Three Arrows NFT garage sale part two

Following on from the first $2.5 million auction of NFTs belonging to defunct crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC), the second round is set to take place this month.

3AC’s collection of NFTs is dubbed the Grails, and features a long list of tokens from top projects such as CrytoPunks, Tyler Hobbs’ Fidenzas and Dmitri Cherniak’s Ringers.

In the second round set for June 15, Sotheby’s will auction off 37 of 3AC’s NFTs in what it describes as the "largest ever live auction of digital art."

*NFTs sold in auction part one. Source: Sotheby's*

Kellogg’s sifts into the Metaverse

Kellogg’s has reportedly filed for a long list of trademarks for a number of its food brands relating to the Metaverse, NFTs, collectibles and crypto tokens.

Some of the brands include Froot Loops, Frosted Flakes, Special K and Pop-Tarts.

According to United States Patent and Trademark Office licensed trademark attorney Mike Kondoudis, the firm has indicated an interest in launching anything from NFT avatars to crypto collectibles, virtual environments and VR-gaming revolving around crypto.

#Kelloggs is coming to the Metaverse!

The food giant has filed 12 trademarks for some of its biggest snack + breakfast food brands, claiming plans for:

▶️Virtual Foods + Environments
▶️Crypto Tokens + Collectables
▶️NFT Backed Media
▶️VR Games#NFTs #Metaverse #Web3 #Crypto pic.twitter.com/JDvu28CHMH
— Mike Kondoudis (@KondoudisLaw) May 30, 2023

Other Nifty News

Some of the most sought-after NFTs collections of 2022 have taken a massive hit in value over the past year, with Investments in top projects such as Doodles, Invisible Friends, Moonbirds and Goblintown all losing up to 95% of their value in ETH.

On May 31, Web3 wallet-as-a-service provider Magic announced that it had successfully raised $52 million in a strategic funding round led by PayPal Ventures. The funding round also saw participation from venture firms Cherubic, Synchrony, KX, Northzone and Volt Capital, bringing Magic’s total funds raised to over $80 million.

Magazine: NFT Creator, 0xDEAFBEEF: Mad scientist’s NFTs degrade when they’re traded

Epic CEO mocks ‘metaverse is dead’ notion — 600M coming to the ‘wake’

May 10, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney made fun of a recent Business Insider article suggesting the Metaverse had run its course.

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney is just as optimistic about the Metaverse as ever, after poking fun at a recent suggestion that online virtual worlds are “dead.”

The now-billionaire video game entrepreneur — creator of the Unreal Engine and Fortnite — took to Twitter on May 9 to mock a newly published article from Business Insider titled “RIP Metaverse, we hardly knew ye.”

The metaverse is dead! Let's organize an online wake so that we 600,000,000 monthly active users in Fortnite, Minecraft, Roblox, PUBG Mobile, Sandbox, and VRChat can mourn its passing together in real-time 3D.https://t.co/tRpFHsdZLw
— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) May 9, 2023

The article by PR firm CEO Ed Zitron suggested the “once-buzzy technology” had “died after being abandoned by the business world.”

The article made particular mention of Meta’s virtual reality (VR) platform Horizon Worlds which Zitron claims has failed to live up to its “grand promise” of becoming the future of the internet.

It also mentions Decentraland and Yuga Labs’ Otherside as examples of Metaverses that have seemingly failed to live up to their hype and claimed investors have turned their attention to the next big tech fad — generative AI.

Excerpt from RIP Metaverse - An obituary for the latest fad to join the tech graveyard. Source: Business Insider

Sweeney however doesn’t appear to agree, suggesting there are 600 million users across virtual world platforms such as Fortnite, Minecraft, Roblox, The Sandbox and VR Chat.

“The metaverse is dead! Let’s organize an online wake so that we 600,000,000 monthly active users in Fortnite, Minecraft, Roblox, PUBG Mobile, Sandbox, and VRChat can mourn its passing together in real-time 3D,” he joked, which was echoed soon after by Sandbox CEO Sebastien Borget.

In April 2022, Epic Games announced a $2 billion funding round with the aim of accelerating the company’s plans for the Metaverse. The investment included a $1 billion investment from Sony Group and KIRKBI, the holding company behind the LEGO Group.

It came not long after LEGO Group and Epic Games announced they were entering a long-term partnership to build a “family-friendly” Metaverse.

Neither company is yet to reveal what plans entail. However, Lego Group chief executive Niels Christiansen told the Financial Times earlier this year that it is looking to announce more details about the collaboration.

Web3 Gamer: ‘Ethical’ SBF game axed, Web3 games sign-up process sucks, Tomb Chaser

Apple’s outside payments ban ruled as unlawful in likely win for NFTs and crypto

April 26, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Anti-Steering Provision

Unless Apple appeals the decision and has the ruling overturned, developers are free to direct app users to their own systems to make purchases.

A California court ruled Apple violated state competition laws by barring app developers from using alternative in-app payment methods apart from its own, which includes a 30% commission.

The decision may clear the path for cryptocurrency and nonfungible token (NFT) projects to add more functionality to their iOS apps.

The April 24 ruling was made by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in the case of Apple vs Epic Games — the creator of the video game Fortnite.

The court upheld the decision of a lower court from 2021 and said that Apple’s anti-steering provision harmed Epic.

The anti-steering provision is an Apple policy stating that iOS developers cannot communicate out-of-app payment methods through certain mechanisms such as in-app links.

The policy increased the costs of Epic’s subsidiaries’ apps that are still on Apple’s App Store and prevented other app users from becoming would-be Epic Games consumers, the court wrote.

Tim Sweeney, the founder and chief executive of Epic Games, tweeted on April 24 that the ruling “frees iOS developers” by allowing them to direct consumers to alternative payment solutions.

Fortunately, the court's positive decision rejecting Apple's anti-steering provisions frees iOS developers to send consumers to the web to do business with them directly there. We're working on next steps.
— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) April 24, 2023

While the court ruled in favor of Apple on most issues, the tech giant failed in its argument that the anti-steering provisions shouldn’t apply to Epic Games because it terminated Epic Games’ iOS developer account in August 2020.

The court ruled that Epic Games would have earned additional revenue since then — save for Apple’s policy — by applying the competitor-suit “tethering test” and the consumer-suit “balancing test” and found the anti-steering provision to be “unfair” pursuant to both tests.

The court looked at Apple’s anti-steering violation through a second angle, ruling that consumers would have flocked to Epic Games directly had they learned about its much lower commission rate of 12%, compared to Apple’s 30%.

“If consumers can learn about lower app prices, which are made possible by developers’ lower costs, and have the ability to substitute to the platform with those lower prices, they will do so — increasing the revenue that the Epic Games Store generates.”

If Apple doesn’t appeal the ruling, it could set a case law precedent benefiting creators of crypto and nonfungible token apps because they won’t be subject to Apple’s 30% “tax.”

Decentralized exchange Uniswap is one of the latest crypto projects to make its way into the App Store despite Apple initially withholding its launch in March.

Nearly two months ago, the European Union set new anti-monopolistic rules that require Apple to permit third-party app stores on its devices, which in turn allow consumers to circumvent Apple’s 30% commissions.

However, in December, Apple interfered with NFT transactions sent on Coinbase’s self-custody wallet, claiming that it’s entitled to “collect 30% of the gas fee” through in-app purchases.

Magazine: Why join a blockchain gaming guild? Fun, profit and create better games

Epic Games

The Pixel Penguin alleged ‘charity project rug’

Epic Games Store to add more blockchain games

Three Arrows NFT garage sale part two

Kellogg’s sifts into the Metaverse

Other Nifty News

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