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Gaming engine Unity adds MetaMask functionality among new Web3 tools

March 1, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

Blockchains Solana and Tezos were also among the 13 “vetted” crypto platforms added to Unity’s Asset Store.

Video game development platform Unity has added a slew of crypto platforms to its asset store aimed at assisting developers interested in Web3 technology to streamline decentralization efforts.

Unity said on Feb. 28 it had released a new “Decentralization” category page in its asset store with “vetted” crypto platforms to support developers interested in merging decentralization into their projects.

Crypto wallet provider MetaMask was one of the 13 platforms featured on the store, with its Software Development Kit (SDK) added to help developers enable users to connect their MetaMask wallet to "any game developed on Unity.”

It has come

The launch of the MetaMask SDK in the Unity Asset Store will allow devs to connect their games to the wallet, enabling users to interact with web3-enabled features within the game itself. Get ready for a whole new level of gameplay!

https://t.co/4JCvdhDtFF pic.twitter.com/gj001jH6ij
— MetaMask (@MetaMask) February 28, 2023

Blockchain’s including Solana (SOL) and Tezos (XTZ) also had their SDKs added to the store, alongside the developer platform Immutable X for those wishing to build Web3 games on the Ethereum blockchain.

The integrations will allow developers to modify the “models of ownership” in games and enable players to create, earn or acquire in-game resources which can be subsequently traded or sold according to Unity.

A recent DappRadar report revealed that gamers made up nearly half (48%) of all blockchain activity in January 2023.

The report stated that a rise in interest in gaming tokens comes from announcements and news related to Web3 gaming making it into the mainstream.

Sara Gherghelas, a blockchain analyst at DappRadar, previously told Cointelegraph that blockchain gaming is already “a vertical” in the traditional industry, believing that as blockchain technology gains more traction, it will also bring “more adoption” to Web3 games which will “become mainstream.”

Meanwhile, Illivium co-founder, Kieran Warwick, told Cointelegraph on Jan. 24 that the “major challenge” with blockchain gaming at the moment is getting “casual gamers” into the market, because of the perception that blockchain games are of “inferior quality.”

$72M Illuvium NFT Land Dutch auction saves buyers thousands on gas fees

June 8, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

The use of a Dutch auction on its own chain may be two major factors that contributed to the sale’s success in selling out the Land plots and keeping gas fees low.

Open-world blockchain game Illuvium managed to keep the average transaction fee for its nonfungible token (NFT) Land at about $20 by holding the Dutch auction on the Illuvium X Layer-2 scaling solution.

The price to mint the NFTs was a fraction of the cost users paid to mint in Yuga Labs’ Otherside sale. Illuvium reports that users spent only $350,000 in fees in total to mint nearly 20,000 plots of Land worth about $72 million, all without any reported network errors.

By contrast, the Otherside sale was plagued with issues. Users paid an average of $6,000 in gas fees and some as high as $14,000. Ethereum became congested as buyers attempted to get their orders filled as quickly as possible.

The 19,969 plots of Land were sold mainly to ILV holders using a Dutch auction format, where the price per unit decreases over time based on how many are sold ahead of it. This allowed potential buyers to wait for a more desirable price range to place an order.

Co-Founder of Illuvium Kieran Warwick said the sale had been designed as an antidote to Ethereum NFT sales that result in wasteful bids that reward miners and cost the buyer.

The 4,018 ETH raised in the sale, valued at about $7.4 million, will be redistributed to holders of Illuvium’s native ILV token. However buyers mostly used ILV tokens to make their purchases. The 239,388 sILV2, a staked version of ILV tokens, will be burned.

It was a fairly impressive effort considering the NFT bear market which has suffered a major decline in volume over the past 30 days. Sales volume topped $137 million on May 6 and has fallen 78% to $31 million as of June 5 according to NFT market tracker CryptoSlam.

Illuvium is a decentralized fantasy RPG of epic scope based on massive battles of creatures called Illuvials.

Illuvium NFT Land plots are a pivotal aspect of the game’s ecosystem. Land generates FUEL, which is used to capture game characters called Illuvials or sold for Ether (ETH). There will also be utility for Land on the upcoming Illuvium Zero game.

The Illuvium Land Sale is officially over!

All Land Plots Sold Out
$72M+ in Total Sales
239,388 sILV2 to be burned
4,018 ETH to be redistributed
NO GAS WARS

MASSIVE thank you to all participants and partners that helped make this a historic success ♊️ pic.twitter.com/adMTq6PpKe
— Illuvium (@illuviumio) June 5, 2022

Warwick believes Illuvium’s game design and tokenomics set it apart from other gaming finance (GameFi) competitors. But he told Cointelegraph that Illuvium is free to play for casual gamers who aren’t yet willing to stump up some cash. “It wasn't an option to not have a free to play version,” he said.

The game combines collectibility and built in rarity. Warwick said each in-game character NFT, called an Illuvial, is unique and the supply is deflationary. One method to deflate the supply is that to level up an Illuvial requires burning three others.

Each Illuvial also comes in a set that only remains available for six months. Warwick said, “Every six months we produce a new set and you can never collect those Illuvials ever again.”

“So people can play for free as much as they want. Using the tier zero Illuvials and shards. But if they want to explore further with higher level characters is when they start paying.”

Illuvium will have its work cut out to gain traction in the current conditions with the NFT gaming industry seeing a troubling 82% drop off in daily sales volume. Daily volume hit $70.3 million on Jan 1, 2022, but clocked in at just $13.7 million on June 6 according to decentralized app (Dapp) tracker DappRadar.

Related: Could GameFi and carbon currencies reverse blockchain’s climate stigma?

NFT game creator flips Axie Infinity virtual land for 9,200% gain in one year

July 15, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Axie Infinity

Illuvium co-founder Kieran Warwick has sold a virtual land plot in Axie Infinity for $28,000 after purchasing it last year for $300.

Kieran Warwick, the co-founder of forthcoming NFT-powered gaming metaverse Illuvium, has revealed he made a gain of more than 9,000% from flipping a virtual plot of land purchased from the Axie Infinity metaverse.

Warwick, the brother of Synthetix founder Kain, recounts purchasing the plots during mid-2020, noting there “weren’t too many use cases” for digital land at the time, with in-metaverse advertising and mining having yet to become common as utilities for virtual property.

He purchased the plot for $300, and announced the sale a year later for $28,000 on July 13.

I just sold a plot of land for 28K that I bought for $300.

You think this isn't going to be a revolution?

What happens when your kid asks for your CC to play a game and comes back with bundles of cash?
— Kieran (@KieranWarwick) July 12, 2021

Despite the lack of apparent utility, Warwick invested “quite a bit into” Axie Infinity based on “the promise for them to build out the metaverse.” While players are still waiting for Axie to build out functionality for its land, Kieran notes the plots have increased in value by thousands of percent over the past year.

“Basically it was speculation, I just thought that play-to-earn in itself, which is this new paradigm of gaming which is taking off now, is going to bring so many players to this game. No matter what, if I buy a rare plot of land, it's going to be worth some money,” he said.

Warwick has invested in digital land in four metaverse projects, but named only Axie Infinity and Mars.

“I want to have land in all of the different games that I think are [...] going to grow in the next few years.”

He likens his investment strategy to physical real estate, noting that investors look for new developments and other signs of growth when seeking to forecast whether property prices in a given suburb are likely to appreciate.

“It's the exact same principle in the metaverse,” said Warwick. “If you feel like there’s going to be popularity and there’s going to be other people building next to you [...] then it’s a no-brainer to buy these land plots. In almost every single case, they’re very rare.”

“If they mint 10,000 land plots, and then all of a sudden there’s a million players, you can see that the scarcity there is going to really create some allure.”

Land can be a productive asset

Beyond speculative buy-and-hodl plays, Warwick emphasizes virtual real estate investors can put their land to work, noting that many landowners within Decentraland host advertising on their plots in the game.

While he thinks “advertising opportunities are probably the biggest use case” at the moment, Warwick predicts the utilities for virtual land will be “endless” as metaverses grow.

Warwick also revealed that his own project will soon start selling land, emphasizing that Illuvium’s virtual plots will have “a use case from day one.”

He said that Illuvium will host a mini-game allowing virtual landowners to mine for an in-game mineral used to mint items within the game.

“You can only mine it if you have land, so immediately there’s a use case,” Warwick said, emphasizing he does not want the sole utility of Illuvium's real estate to be speculation: “just a stagnant thing where people buy, and it’s only important if someone else wants to buy it.”

Kieran Warwick

Land can be a productive asset

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