Bitcoin gaming enters Africa with local crypto exchange partnership

April 12, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Africa

The Bitcoin gaming economy gets a boost from Zebedee’s expansion into Africa, complementing its Brazil and Philippines operations.

Gamers in Africa can now send and receive small amounts of Bitcoin (BTC) while playing classic titles like Counter-Strike.

Zebedee, a fintech and payments processor targeting the gaming space, has partnered with crypto exchange platform Bitnob to offer payments and gaming reward options in Africa using the Bitcoin Lightning Network (LN).

Within the partnership, African users can earn Bitcoin through Zebedee-powered apps and games. Zebedee’s offering serves as a second layer in games that allows developers to replace vague in-game points rewards with satoshis, the smallest denomination of Bitcoin. Through the partnership with Bitnob, these, in turn, can be converted to a local currency like the Nigerian nairas.

Zebedee’s chief strategy officer Ben Cousens explained that the partnership was driven by game developers who had Bitcoin in mind for tournaments and other gaming rewards.

“If I’m Activision Blizzard or EA Games and I have 30 million players of my games in Africa, and I run tournaments or giveaways, I cannot pay those players on fiat rails — it is too expensive. I am limited to the U.S., and I lose money from loss of engagement. Try sending $0.01 to these territories on another rail,” he said.

“This is about the $180 billion video games market, not play-and-earn or crypto gaming.”

In general, Africa has been a growing area of interest for the Lightning Network, partly due to the LN’s ability to facilitate microtransactions . Bitcoin Senegal founder Nourou told Cointelegraph, “Microtransactions are our economic reality,” hence why he and many other African builders and developers are exploring the LN.

*Gamers can already earn Bitcoin by playing popular games such as Counter-Strike. Source: Zebedee*

Africa benefits from young demographics and a digitally native population. Cousens continued, “We’ve seen consistent evidence of high demand for our platform across the African continent, where the purchasing power of Bitcoin is considerably higher than markets like the U.S. and Europe.”

Indeed, the matchup of LN and gaming is a growing trend during the bear market. Cousens said it’s “A natural evolution of the interactive entertainment landscape, where ‘Rewarded Play’ (in lieu of unsustainable play-and-earn) provides meaningful performance uplift for game developers against a backdrop of slowing growth in mobile gaming revenue while engaging players in a fun and creative way.”

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FBI Warns About Cryptocurrency Theft Scams Using Play-to-Earn Games

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Listen-and-Earn allows Bitcoin payments for podcasters and listeners

January 24, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

The Fountain podcasting app announced a partnership with ZEBEDEE to allow podcast creators and listeners the ability to earn Bitcoin for their time spent with content.

Crypto has tapped into various industries over the years to enable users with the unique ability to micro-monetize their actions. Play-to-earn gaming, along with earning from music streaming, has been the forerunner for this type of crypto integration.

On Jan 24. Fountain, a value-for-value podcasting platform, announced a new partnership with ZEBEDEE, a financial services company that helps monetize games and apps, to enable Bitcoin (BTC) micropayments for podcast listeners.

Oscar Merry, the founder and CEO of Fountain, called the ability to listen to a podcast and earn money for it, a powerful combo and the future of content creation.

“A few years from now, we’ll look back at paid subscriptions for content platforms that aren’t related to how much we actually use those platforms and laugh at how basic and inefficient it was. ”

Additionally, through the partnership with ZEBEDEE, users don’t need to know anything about cryptocurrencies to take advantage of the rewards through debit and credit card integrations.

The CEO told Cointelegraph that through the use of the Bitcoin Lightning Network specifically, instant, permissionless, and low-fee payments can be programmed that work both within the Fountain app and other open RSS standards.

According to Merry, such a development connects a “fragmented podcasting industry” which currently operates across numerous unsynchronized apps and hosting providers.

He went on to highlight that every minute spent viewing ads and consuming or creating content increases a platform’s value.

“Why shouldn't you participate in the financial upside of the value you create on the platform?”

As developers continue to prioritize utility in new protocols, adoption of emerging technologies becomes almost unnoticeable. Recently, a “party-to-earn” initiative targeted the electronic music industry to create a currency that is universal across festival goers, clubbers and fans.

Axie Infinity’s Monthly Player Count Drops to Low Not Seen Since November 2020

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Crypto Unicorns founder: P2E gaming is in a long ‘maturation phase’

December 30, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Blockchain Game

Crypto Unicorns founder Aron Beierschmitt chats with NFT Steez about the key components blockchain-games need to build sustainable in-game play-and-earn economies.

As the hype surrounding play-to-earn (P2E) games and platforms began to dwindle in early 2022, Web3 participants began to emphasize the need for games to be more “fun” and less finance-oriented.

In the most recent episode of NFT Steez, Alyssa Expósito and Ray Salmond speak with Aron Beierschmitt, the CEO of Laguna Games and founder of Crypto Unicorns, about the sustainability of P2E-focused blockchain games.

For Beierschmitt, the evolution from a play-to-earn to a play-and-earn model suggests that there is still experimentation and maturation to be seen for these games. “Nothing has changed about making games,” said Beierschmitt. But with blockchain technology, crypto natives and gamers are now able to play, own and potentially monetize from these play-and-earning models. The larger question at hand is, is it sustainable?

The paradigm and sentiment shift of P2E gaming

Regarding the shift in sentiment around P2E and how Crypto Unicorns is approaching it, Beierschmitt said it is “charting a path to sustainability through the combination of economic farming simulation” along with the real-time “skill-based gaming loops” to attract more users into its ecosystem. These gaming loops not only need to have a semblance of form and function but also need to be fun and engaging for players, according to Beierschmitt.

However, he also acknowledged that blockchain-based games are not for everyone and that Crypto Unicorns’ target demographic is more in line with those who are crypto-native.

According to Beierschmitt, there is a lack of “incentive alignment for free-to-play,” whereby developers maximize extracting value from the minority of players who spend in free-to-play games. This disparity creates a “mismatch in the paradigm,” whereby Web3 gaming enables players to reach a new level of autonomy and ownership when it comes to in-game items, assets and skill.

For Beierschmitt, this is what makes the play-and-earn model “compelling,” since players can potentially earn along the way while playing their favorite game. Web3 not only enables players’ provenance and ownership, but with governance models, players and participants are now empowered to take “ownership of the direction the game, ecosystem and IP [intellectual property],” said Beierschmitt.

In-game economies are a work in progress

In-game economies have proven to be a sticking point for most play-and-earn games. When discussing the factors that are necessary for in-game economies to be sustainable in the long term, Beierschmitt explained that one factor that aids is the dynamic between passive and active players. Passive players are those who invest in active players to progress themselves in the game.

However, Beierschmitt emphasized that for the dynamic to be sustainable, “skill-based gaming loops” and “token sinks” must be implemented because this returns the player back to the economy and ecosystem. As Beierschmitt put it, most play-and-earn games are still sorting their transition from “growth phase” to “maturation phase,” but he does firmly believe there are “bright futures in the days ahead!”

For more on the discussion with Aron Beierschmitt, be sure sure to listen to the full episode of NFT Steez on the new Cointelegraph Podcasts page or on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or TuneIn.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed in this podcast are the participants’ alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

Nifty News: Square Enix invests into NFT gaming firm, Beeple speaks on NFT art future and more…

December 26, 2022 Coin Telegraph

beeple

Pokémon Company International has taken an Australian company to court over advertising an unlicensed NFT-based Pokémon game and HSBC has filed for a host of NFT and Metaverse trademarks.

NFT-friendly Japanese gaming giant Square Enix has invested 7 billion yen ($52.7 million) into game developer Gumi to create “high-quality” mobile games, blockchain games and a Metaverse initiative, among other things.

According to a translat ion of the press release, the partnership will help Gumi tap certain intellectual property from Square Enix, while it has also teased that the duo could be teaming up for a game-NFT-focused marketplace.

“We are already considering the establishment of a platform dedicated to blockchain games and an NFT marketplace, etc. Through collaboration between the two companies, we will provide a one-stop service from the development and distribution of blockchain games to the sale and distribution of tokens and NFTs.”

The company also outlined plans to work on a host of NFT games that will likely have Metaverse integrations. The Japanese company has outlined a quirky new term called “Wow and Earn” which essentially refers to games built off of world-famous IP that is integrated with blockchain-based Play-to-Earn (P2E) features.

“In the future, while considering the use of powerful content that everyone recognizes, we will break away from the highly speculative blockchain games of the past and create value while enjoying fun and excitement. We strongly recognize that it is necessary for game users all over the world to create a blockchain game that realizes ‘Wow and Earn,'" the release reads.

Gumi also stated that its “working day and night” to develop its Metaverse-focused arm of the business, as it looks to add another source of revenue outside of mobile games.

Gumi has previously worked with Square Enix on a couple of mobile games as part of the Final Fantasy Brave Exvius series, and both firms are partners of the Oasys blockchain-gaming project, which is building its own network designed purely for P2E gaming.

Beeple outlines future of NFTs and art

Michael Winkelmann, the widely successful digital artist also known as Beeple, believes that all physical art in the future will one day have an NFT attached to it.

Speaking with the Wall Street Journal on Dec. 23, Beeple suggested that NFTs will massively help the art industry by providing superior methods for tracking provenance and storing verifiably authentic data.

“I think all paintings will eventually have NFTs attached just because again, it's a better system than just handing you a piece of paper,” he said, adding that:

“If you had a standardization around ‘this is a painting,’ you could have all the provenance in the metadata of that NFT. You could have [that data on] where that painting was shown. So it’s all there and it's searchable in a database.”

As such, he thinks that NFTs will eventually help build a standardized art database that “everyone relies on.”

Pokemon takes NFT company to court

Pokémon Company International has taken an Australian company to court over advertising an unlicensed NFT-based Pokémon game, according to documents lodged with the Federal Court of Australia.

The company in question is called “Pokémon Pty Ltd” and it has been advertising an unlicensed “metauniverse” P2E game on Ethereum called Pokeworld.

On its website, it also claims to work on a host of official Pokemon games in the past, while it also claims to have an official partnership with Pokémon Company International.

However in the court documents, the Pokemon IP holders are seeking to restrain Pokémon Pty Ltd from representing that they hold any license, partnership or rights to sell Pokemon NFTs.

It has also called for the company to halt the launch of the game, promote it using Pokemon trademarks on its website and social media.

HSBC trademarks

British multinational mega bank HSBC has filed virtual trademarks for its name and logo, outlining potential plans for a host of NFT, blockchain and Metaverse products.

In its filing, highlighted by licensed trademark attorney, Mike Kondoudis via Twitter on Dec. 23, the HSBC lists a host of products and services including downloadable NFT virtual goods and files, virtual world friendly debit cards, NFT music and video content files.

The Metaverse appears to be a keen focus in the filing, as it also states that it is looking at providing financial advisory and entertainment services in the Metaverse and other virtual worlds.

#HSBC has filed trademark applications for its name and logo. The applications indicate plans for:

▶️ Digital media backed by NFTs
▶️ Virtual currency exchange + transfer
▶️ Virtual credit card processing
…and more!#NFTs #Metaverse #Cryptocurrency #Blockchain #Crypto pic.twitter.com/RK1yegoYIh
— Mike Kondoudis (@KondoudisLaw) December 23, 2022

Other Nifty News:

Hackers linked to North Korea’s Lazarus Group are reportedly behind a massive phishing campaign targeting NFT investors — utilizing nearly 500 phishing domains to dupe victims.

NFT marketplace OpenSea has been banning artists and collectors from Cuba, citing United States sanctions as the key reason behind its action.

Forget Play-to-Earn—Factory NFTs Are the New Crypto Gaming Meta

September 29, 2022 The Crypto Briefing

Bandai Namco, SEGA among gaming giants eyeing blockchain gaming

September 19, 2022 Coin Telegraph

bandai namco

Big gaming firms are working to spur mainstream blockchain gaming adoption, and don’t want to “change that policy” even if it causes pushback from some.

Japanese gaming giants are positioning for mainstream blockchain game adoption, and will not be swayed by the section of gamers that are against crypto and nonfungible tokens (NFTs), an exec from the Oasys blockchain project told Cointelegraph.

Speaking to Cointelegraph at the 2022 Tokyo Games Show last week, Oasys Representative Director Ryo Matsubara emphasized that the project’s big-name partners such as Bandai Namco, Sega and Square Enix are not just jumping on the crypto bandwagon —there's a long-term vision for blockchain-based Play-to-Earn (P2E) gaming:

"We have a shared vision about blockchain at the executive level. They don't [want to] change that policy. They really understand the future adoption of blockchain. They're not thinking about, you know, just the revenue, they want to create the next future [of gaming].”

Bandai Namco has developed beloved titles such as Tekken and Pac-Man, Sega’s most famous title is generally seen as Sonic the Hedgehog, while Square Enix is the developer of the widely popular Final Fantasy franchise.

Questioned whether these companies are looking to integrate blockchain tech with their current gaming franchises, Matsubara suggested that they are initially looking at developing brand new blockchain games instead.

He noted that as this is a completely “new model” of gaming, it needs more time to mature before these big companies will look at broader blockchain integrations with traditional games.

“When the model is fixed, becomes sustainable and successful, then strong [popular] IP will be added,” he said.

Looking at what needs to be improved in blockchain gaming, Matsubara noted that a “big problem” so far is that many projects are too dependent on the price of in-game tokens. As a result, there is more demand for “speculation” rather than the gameplay itself.

He went on to note that there will be an “adjustment” over time as projects work to develop genuine hype for the games themselves, most likely by improving the overall gaming experience.

This echoed similar sentiments to the lead community manager at Australia-based game developer and Animoca Brands subsidiary Blowfish Studios Luke Sillay, who was also at the event.

During an interview with Cointelegraph, Sillay emphasized that more people want games that are actually “fun to play” rather than just a hustle to earn tokens.

Oasys’ proof-of-stake blockchain is geared directly towards gaming and is tentatively set for an official mainnet launch in the remaining months of this year. Matsubara also hinted that games from its big-name partners will likely be announced next year.

Looking outside Japan, major western gaming companies such as Fortnite developers Epic Games have increased exposure to blockchain gaming of late. Last week the Epic Games store listed a new free-to-play NFT game called Blankos Block Party by Mythical Games.

The move follows comments from Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney in July, in which he stated that his company “definitely” wouldn’t follow Microsoft’s Minecraft in banning NFT integrations in games.

South Korean ministry recommends enactment of special Metaverse laws

September 18, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Blockchain Game

The MSIT identified that imposing older regulations serve as a deterrent to the growth of new ecosystems.

The Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) of South Korea revealed plans to move away from imposing traditional video gaming laws on the Metaverse. Instead, the ministry decided to issue new guidelines for incentivizing the growth of the budding ecosystem.

South Korea’s interest in garnering Web3 and the Metaverse ecosystems is evidenced by the $200 million investment it made for the creation of an in-house Metaverse. Running parallel to this effort, the MSIT identified that imposing older regulations serve as a deterrent to the growth of new ecosystems.

In the first meeting of the National Data Policy committee, MSIT noted that “We will not make the mistake of regulating a new service with existing law.” However, discussions around designating the Metaverse as a video game are still on the table.

The ministry decided that new industries — including the Metaverse, autonomous driving and OTT streaming platforms — demand the formation of fresh regulations. In regards to the Metaverse, MSIT raised concerns about hindering industrial growth due to a lack of legal and institutional basis. Revealing the plan, a rough translation of the press release read:

“Establish guidelines for classification of game products and metaverses for rational and consistent regulation and support for enactment of related laws (enactment of special metaverse laws, etc.)”

Previously, on Sept. 1, members of the National Assembly supported an official proposal for the enactment of the Metaverse Industry Promotion Act to support the Web3 industry.

While supporting the growth of new technologies, South Korean authorities continue their crackdown on people running the Terra ecosystem.

South Korean prosecutors claim that Do Kwon, the co-founder and CEO of Terraform Labs, allegedly defrauded investors by issuing LUNA and USTC without notifying investors of the danger that the price of both could plummet together.

As a result, the prosecutors have applied with authorities to revoke Kwon's and other Terra employees' passports.

Animoca Brands continues shopping spree with MotoGP mobile dev acquisition

September 16, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

The company announced its acquisition of WePlay Media after it recently closed multiple multi-million dollar fund rounds with investors such as Temasek.

One of Web3’s leading digital property rights developers, Animoca Brands, announced yet another major acquisition to its increasing portfolio of gaming subsidiaries.

The company announced the purchase of WePlay Media, which developed the popular blockchain-game MotoGP Championship Quest, on Sept. 16. According to the agreement, the acquisition is in an effort to bolster user engagement in motorsport mobile gaming.

Graeme Warring, the co-founder and COO of WePlay Media and co-creator of MotoGP, called the acquisition an exciting development for both parties as they expand their reach to motorcycle fans across the globe.

“Animoca Brands has the ability to reach hundreds of millions of users in core growth demographics to expand the sport’s fan base and create engagement opportunities for the riders, teams and sponsors."

Similarly, Yat Siu, the co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands, highlighted the potential engagement boost of the acquisition of MotoGP and other motorsport-related games under Animoca.

According to MotoGP’s latest Global Fan Survey, their community has high levels of engagement and interest in regular participation in competitive mobile gaming. It reported that 79% of all respondents from 16-24 years of age engaged in competitive gaming on a weekly basis, with 54% of fans based in the Asia-Pacific region.

Animoca has shown to be highly invested in developing the motorsport gaming sector as it introduced a motorsport-based REVV token rewards ecosystem and NFT programs within the MotoGP game.

Earlier in April of this year, Animoca also acquired Eden Games, which developed the Gear.Club, the Test Drive series and other popular racing games.

In August, Animoca subsidiary Grease Monkey Games received funding to develop the blockchain-based motorsports game Torque Drift 2.

This latest acquisition development comes after Animoca’s successful $110 million funding round led by Temasek on Sept. 8, from which it said it planned to make subsequent strategic acquisitions. Animoca has investments across the Web3 space in operations such as The Sandbox, Axie Infinity, SkyMavis and DapperLabs, among others.

Play-to-Earn