Web3 Gamer

Blockchain games desperately need a viral moment to succeed, Cut The Rope in The Sandbox, Axie and Aelph hand out cash, Nitro Nation hot take.

Blockchain gaming needs its own EVO Moment 37?

While the Web3 gaming ecosystem is still trying to find its footing in the mainstream gaming world, a key element missing from almost all the Web3 titles is inspiration. To achieve a broader audience, Web3 gaming needs a wow moment to go viral and into the records of gaming history.

Web3 gaming studios are falling into the same trap that many of their traditional predecessors fell into: Better visuals, more rewards and a larger cast of characters. Sure, these are some vital elements of the gaming experience, but in order to expand a whole ecosystem, developers need to think beyond that.

With Street Fighter 6 just released and Mortal Kombat 1 on the horizon, its safe to say that the fighting games are having a big comeback. But lets remember the exact moment that showed players worldwide the joy of fighting games for the first time: The EVO Moment 37.

In 2004, during the golden years of home consoles, the fighting game-focused tournament EVO saw a magical moment where two legendary players competed with each other and one of them Daigo Umehara pulled a move that was then considered impossible. YouTube was not a thing back then, so that moment was captured by the official DVD that was released the following year. It was named Evo Moment 37 and became a major trigger for wide audiences to take fighting games seriously.

Web3 gaming needs that. Web3 studios need to add inspiration, wow moment potential and an aspect of virality to their products. It will be a tough road to gain the interest of mainstream audiences until then.

Om Nom enters the metaverse

Games like Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja, and Cut the Rope assumed the role of catalyzers during the dawn of mobile gaming: They catapulted smartphones and tablets to the hands of a mainstream audience with vivid visuals, cute characters and intuitive gameplays that used then-groundbreaking frictionless touch screen in innovative ways. Thats why ZeptoLab partnering with The Sandbox to bring Om Nom the green monster from the Cut the Rope franchise to Web3 is big news for old schoolers.

Players will have a chance to explore a virtual world inspired by the franchise in Om Noms Social Hub. The event will host familiar characters from Cut the Rope with the end goal of discovering Om Noms origin story.

ZeptoLab business development director Kristina Truvaleva says bringing the classic title to the metaverse will give players a feeling that they have been transported into a whole new world permeated with nostalgia but full of fresh challenges.

The virtual world went live on Aug. 10. Players who complete all quests and requirements will have a chance to share a pool of 120,000 SAND. A real-life prize called Om Noms Money Box will also be sent to 1:1 avatar holders that pass all of Om Noms Social Hub quests.

Axie builders get the Greenlight

Axie Infinity creator Sky Mavis recently introduced Mavis Hub: Greenlight, a program for developers to share their early game builds with the community. The program allows players to playtest and includes a voting system that lets the community vote on the games they are most excited about, driving competition between developers.

The games must be at the playable beta stage to be eligible for the program, meaning the core game loop should be complete and provide at least one complete game session. Successful games on Greenlight may receive extra support, such as additional grants and user acquisition budgets for soft launches.

The program echoes similar exercises in Web2 gaming, like the now-defunct Steam Greenlight, which has been turned into Steam Direct. They streamline the process for developers and provide valuable feedback from the community, driving engagement as players decide who stays and who goes.

Interested players can try out two debut games on Greenlight called Mini Tri-Force and Culinary Wars. In the former, the player tries to save their Axie clan in a poisoned forest by combatting youkai ghosts in Japanese folklore. The latter is a co-op cooking game that heavily resembles Overcooked, where players take the role of chefs and make haste to fulfill orders in a short amount of time often resulting in chaos.

Mavis Hub: Greenlight has been launched on the Mavis Hub Desktop App, while a web-based version is also in the works.

$150K inducements to join the dark side

Layer-1 blockchain network Aelf launched its Aelevate program, dangling the offer of up to $150,000 per Web2 studio to help developers transition to blockchain technology and create games on the Aelf network.

The companys track record so far lacks any gaming ventures, but Aelf aims to break into the gaming world with this program. Considering the blockchain gaming market is projected to be over $60 billion by 2027 nearly 15 times its $4.6 billion market size from 2022 Aelfs enthusiasm is understandable.

“Our goal is to break the daunting barriers studios face in integrating blockchain technology into their games, particularly in the current uncertain and challenging crypto climate, said Tavia Wong, head of commercial at Aelf, adding:

Through Aelevate, we are pledging our support for the Web3 gaming space as we provide crucial infrastructural support and expert industry guidance for our participants to thrive and succeed in this new Web3 frontier.

Aelf presents its suite of decentralized applications to successful applicants, streamlining the blockchain transition process with asset integration, token creation and the development of smart contracts. The program also assists the business side of Web3 with mentorships, market strategies and fundraising opportunities.

The program applications are open until Sept. 30, with the first round of grants scheduled to be awarded in October.

Hot Take Nitro Nation: World Tour

Mythical Games Nitro Nation: World Tour is a free Web3 drag racing game on mobile and is a great option to blow off a long days steam. It combines simple gameplay mechanics with beautiful graphics for a mobile game, of course.

The controls are straightforward to grasp, as there are only two buttons. The first is the gas button which is used to keep the indicator in the green zone at the beginning of the race. As the race starts, this button turns into the “Gear Shift” button, which should be pressed when the indicator is in the green zone to keep a steady pace. The second is the nitro button, which gives the car a little boost.

Players can upgrade and tune their cars to have an edge on the streets. The game also provides a wide range of customization options that can be bought using the in-game currency and boasts a vast roster of fully licensed cars ranging from Subarus and Mazdas to Aston Martins and Paganis.

Web3 elements come into play as NFT cars, which can be dropped from purchasable car packs or directly bought from and sold on the marketplace. The NFT cars come pre-tuned and with better stats. The game is perfectly playable without NFT cars, so mainstream free-to-play (F2P) players arent forced into these Web3 elements. Nitro Nation: World Tour offers simpler gameplay than your usual Forzas and Need for Speeds but manages to keep it fun. If you are into cars, racing or NFTs, consider trying out Nitro Nation: World Tour.

More from crypto gaming space:

Bandai Namco, the world-renowned publisher of Dark Souls and Tekken games, collaborated with blockchain network Oasys and startup Attructure to unveil an AI-enhanced virtual pet game that features NFT-based digital creatures.

Amazon Prime Gaming partnered up with Web3 auto chess game Mojo Melee to offer free exclusive drops to Amazon Prime members.

Web3 Mahjong game Mahjong Meta went live after its two-month-long open beta phase.

nWays mech fighting game Wreck League collaborates with Yuga Labs to host Yuga-themed mech NFTs.

NFT-based open-world social MMO game Dininho released on Arbitrum.

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Instagram CEO Zuckerberg’s $40B metaverse losses, AI-powered NFT RPG on Discord, new Web3 eSports platform and a hot take on Gods Unchained.

Mark Zuckerberg tries to restore trust as metaverse losses cap $40B

Lets get business out of the way before getting to the fun part: Meta, the parent company of WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram, is heavily involved in virtual worlds through its metaverse unit, Reality Labs. 

However, its investments have yet to pay off, with the metaverse company reporting collective losses of over $40 billion. 

Despite the losses, investors are optimistic about Meta CEO Mark Zuckerbergs long-term bet on the metaverse, sending the stock up 7% after hearing Zuckerbergs reasoning on the Meta Q2 2023 Earnings call.

Wall Street seems convinced by his arguments, which are backed by Metas improved overall business performance as the platform saw its revenue increase in the second quarter. Zuckerberg aims to cover metaverse costs with the growth from Metas family of apps, which has increased by $2 billion, making it just over halfway to covering the $3.7 billion loss from Reality Labs.

I can’t guarantee you that I’m going to be right about this bet. I do think that this is the direction that the world is going in.

The Meta CEO believes an immersive version of the internet will become the norm. He supported this statement with examples of trends such as smart glasses and immersive communication:

There are 1 billion or 2 billion people who have glasses today. I think in the future, they’re all going to be smart glasses. And all the time that we spend on TVs and computers, I think that’s going to get more immersive and look something more like VR in the future.

After the launch of Threads excitement over which faded after a short while but has been reignited Meta will reportedly release AI chatbots with human-like personalities with a focus on user retention.

Role-playing game combines AI and NFT on Discord

A new blockchain game is cooking for all the text-based role-playing game lovers out there. Alchemy: Battle for Ankhos will be running on Discord, using the platform’s familiar environment to host battles in a fantasy world.

Although this isnt an entirely new concept, with examples like Wordle, PokeMeow and Guess the Song, bringing along crypto and AI will surely spice things up.

The art style immediately conjures memories of Darkest Dungeon another turn-based RPG with roguelike mechanics. Four developers are building the game with the support of generative AI tools, including OpenAI and Midjourney. The Alchemy: Battle for Ankhos team utilizes Midjourney to create art, while OpenAI gives NPCs custom behavior. 

The project, which was one of the five winners in Solanas NFT Showdown, will allow players to mint their assets from in-game menus without any blockchain knowledge. According to the games creative director, Alex Finden, nearly every asset earned or purchased in-game will be optionally mintable.

A new challenger: Web3 gets a new esports platform

Professional Dota 2 player Erik Tofu Engel, who has won over $400,000 from various esports tournaments, has recently expressed interest in the Web3 stage. 

Short for electronic sports, esports is a growing industry with an audience of more than half a billion people on the global stage in 2022, with expected growth to $1.87 billion in revenue by 2025. With these numbers, it is no wonder Web3 players are competing to enter the space.

Crypto gaming startup Ultra also heard the call and announced the launch of an esports tournament platform built on its own blockchain network called Ultra Arena. The platform, which will launch on Aug. 8, will allow players and brands to organize tournaments and leagues with NFTs and platform tokens as prizes. 

Ultra Arena will support popular Web2 games, including League of Legends, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Overwatch 2 and PUBG, along with games already available on its PC game store, Ultra Games.

Hot Take: Gods Unchained

One of the oldest and most popular free-to-play Web3 games, Gods Unchained, found its way into my playlist with its recent release on the Epic Games Store.

The turn-based card game distinguishes itself from frontrunners of the genre with its Web3 elements, presenting the cards as tradeable NFTs and hosting a player-focused community marketplace.

Along with cosmetic items such as card backs and trinkets, cards can be bought and sold in the marketplace, providing true ownership to the players. There are also card packs, which can be bought using the GODS token.

The game features beautiful animations and a slick art style in general, but lag in gameplay and in menus often overshadow the graphics. Gods Unchained draws heavy inspiration card game genre classics, most notably Blizzard Entertainments Hearthstone.

The usual mana, strength and health mechanics are all there, with the addition of Gods, which are like Heroes from Hearthstone. Gods have their own abilities, which you can choose at the start of the match.

After booting the game up and trying to play the first mission out of three in the tutorials, a bug appeared which prevented me from completing the mission, so I decided to concede the in-game button for surrendering with the intention of restarting the mission.

The game returned to the menu and awarded me the completion rewards for the first mission. So, I thought, Huh, maybe that was the last step of the mission and the game registered it as complete.

Then came the second mission, which was completed with no issues. On the third mission, another bug appeared. I tried waiting, clicking on every possible option and, with nothing else to do, had to concede. In front of me was the menu with completion rewards.

After that, I played a few casual and ranked games, and all went smoothly without any problems.

In conclusion, the game could use some work. It does not present the seamless experience of Hearthstone or introduce new mechanics like Marvel Snap. Considering it has been five years since its initial release, and there are unfixed bugs in the tutorial missions, it feels like the developers arent really concerned with user experience. Hopefully, they can fix these issues in their upcoming mobile release.

If you are a fan of the genre and a crypto enthusiast, it is worth taking a look at. Otherwise, you are better off playing Magic: The Gathering, Hearthstone, Marvel Snap or Legends of Runeterra.

More from Web3 gaming space:

Axie Infinity creator Sky Mavis partnered with CyberKongz to enrich the Ronin platform. 

Solana-based NFT game Aurory will integrate Ethereum scaling technology Arbitrum using its SyncSpace system.

Web3 gaming guild Yield Guild Games announced an extended collaboration with Polygon Labs to provide enhanced support to partner games developed on the Polygon network, including popular titles like The Sandbox and Crypto Unicorns.

Hasbro will collaborate with Xplored, the company behind the Teburu digital board game system, to experiment with integrating smart-sensing technology, AI, and dynamic multimedia.

Rumble Racing Star developer Delabs Games raised $4.7 million in seed funding for development on Polygon.

Solert Games will launch “Game of Thrones” star Hafthor Bjornsson endorsed Legends at War on the Avalanche blockchain.

Mobile tower defense strategy game EF Defense is set to launch on the Ethereum scaling network, Immutable zkEVM.

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How to earn Bitcoin in Minecraft, Sega is half in/half out of blockchain games, BGA board’s 50/50 gender split, and more Web3 gaming news.

Minecraft gets the Bitcoin treatment

It seems like Minecraft has been around since the invention of computers, and there is a reason for that. Along with its official free updates, which provide extra content, the Minecraft ecosystem has an incredibly active community, helping it stay up to date. Thanks to the games open-ended gameplay, there is tons of community-built content available to enjoy.

Have you finished the standard content of the game? Then why not relive the industrial revolution with custom-built mods? Or enter a competition to see who can build a construction first against hundreds of others? There is a server for that. Pokemon in Minecraft? Pixelmon! 

And if you want to earn Bitcoin in Minecraft? Welp, you can even do that now.

A community-operated Minecraft server by the name of Satlantis has integrated Zebedees gaming tech that lets players earn Bitcoin by completing in-game quests inspired by real-life BTC mining. Players in the server can join in-game mining pools, collect ASICs (popular hardware tailored for Bitcoin mining) and increase their hash rate to win block rewards. What a cool way to educate traditional gamers on the basics of Bitcoin!

Players can withdraw their earnings to Zebedees app, where they can spend their gains on other games made by the company or move them to exchanges that support Bitcoins layer-2 Lightning Network.

Dont get your hopes up for buying a Lambo with your earnings from building pixelated wonders. The server will give out a total of 1 million satoshis equal to one hundred millionth of a BTC per week. Thats around $300 per week divided by God-only-knows how many people. While it isnt much, its a start that could become a trend. 

The Bitcoin-friendly integration is an unofficial one, and neither Satlantis nor Zebedee is affiliated with the Minecraft developer Mojang Studios. The studio itself is pretty down on Web3, having previously banned Minecraft NFT integrations. Time will show how this integration fairs against the ban.

Blockchain Game Alliance ramps up diversity efforts

Diversity is a surprisingly new topic in the world of video games. Most major publishers had not even released a diversity report as recently as 2021. In 2022 Activision Blizzard gave itself five long years to meet its goal of 50% women and non-binary employees.

Members of the Blockchain Game Alliance, a key organization promoting Web3 and blockchain gaming, voted to install a gender-balanced board, with three men and three women. And the newly elected BGA board of 2023 is made up of all new faces.

They are Leah Callon-Butler, director of consulting firm Emfarsis; Yasmina Kazitani, chief marketing and partnerships officer at Interverse; Christina Macedo, co-founder and chief operating officer at Ready gg; Hideaki Uehara, director of business development at Square Enix; Mariano Rubinstein, CEO and co-founder at Sura Gaming; and Alex Kosloff, head of business development at Altura.

As an avid gamer, I will be watching with interest to see if the make-up of the new board can help progress and innovation across the Web3 gaming space.

Sega not a fan of P2E but developing a blockchain game

The makers of all-time favorite franchises Sonic and Yakuza have had an on-again, off-again relationship with blockchain technology. Sega announced plans for NFTs as play-to-earn (P2E) rewards last year. Later, they stepped off the gas after a backlash from fans, who considered the initiative a money grab.

This year, Sega is also walking both sides of the street. Shuji Utsumi, co-chief operating officer at Sega, called blockchain games boring and said the Japanese gaming giant wouldnt be using its biggest titles in blockchain gaming projects.

However, Sega has announced a partnership with Line Next to bring its classic games to GAME DOSI, a Web3-friendly blockchain gaming platform. In light of this announcement, Utsumi clarified that investing in Web3 projects is within the companys strategy but that they dont intend to be a Web3 company but rather a Web 2.5 one.

As everyones aware, the mainstream gaming community is unenthusiastic about blockchain games and sees them as a temporary trend fueled by hype and speculation. Players are concerned about money grabs and the short lifespans of Web3 games, so its understandable Sega doesnt want to put its big titles in an area where it has little-to-no experience. 

While some skepticism is warranted, it doesnt mean blockchain technology wont ever find its footing in the gaming industry. Multi-billion-dollar tech companies are aware of the possibilities Web3 gaming brings and know the importance of getting in on the ground floor.

Segas decision to test the water with its smaller IPs is a thoughtful and measured approach that respects its legacy while navigating the uncharted terrain of Web3 gaming. 

Studios $15M funding from Binance Labs for Web3 dino game

Binances venture capital and incubator arm Binance Labs has invested $15 million in Web3 gaming startup Xterio. The company labels itself as a free-to-play-and-own game developer and publisher, meaning the games are free to play, and players are able to earn and keep NFTs. In August last year, it raised $40 million in funding from investors, including FunPlus, XPLA and now-extinct FTX Ventures.

Xterio seems to have a lot of experience on the gaming front, with Web2 gaming industry veterans on its founding executive team from companies including Ubisoft, Krafton and NetEase. There are 11 games in its repertoire, ranging from Age of Dino a massively multiplayer online 4X (explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate) strategy game that features dinosaurs to Overworld, a cross-platform sandbox RPG with anime-inspired graphics.

Xterio is developing an emotion engine for AI, with an aim to enhance player immersion by equipping game characters with realistic and dynamic emotional responses The Matrix and the whole AI takes-control scenario were way ahead of their time.

The company uses AI very actively as they host an AI toolkit for developers and are creating a digital companion game called AIpal which is entering its beta phase later this year.

Hot take Oath of Peak

The undeniable success of Genshin Impact a Chinese MMORPG with cute graphics and fast-paced action that was released on virtually every platform except Casio Scientific Calculator sparked off a trend of introducing every possible bit of Chinese mythology to Western audiences among developers. 

Oath of Peak, an action MMORPG game that diversifies with its Web3 elements, seems to capitalize on that itch. Available on iOS and Android platforms as a free download, the game offers an epic world thats easy to get familiar with, thanks to its cute graphics. 

Similar to other massively multiplayer games, players can pick from five different classes with fully customizable avatars. The game offers melee, assassin, ranger, mage and support characters nothing groundbreaking. 

With the recently-added English language support, it wasnt hard to find my way around the colorful island. After completing some quests, I realized one cool thing about the game: it doesnt shove its Web3 features at the player. Sure, the game has NFT monsters and a utility token thats exchangeable with in-game currency, but it doesnt become prominent until after players are invested in the game in terms of time and effort.

If you are in the market to check some new games with familiar mechanics, its worth taking a look at Oath of Peak, now available globally via app stores or its APK. Itll only take 15-20 minutes for you to understand whether its a game for you or not anyway.

More from Web3 gaming space:

Eyeball Games, led by the team behind Miniclips 8 Ball Pool, has announced the launch of their blockchain-based mobile game, Eyeball Pool, on the Immutable platform in early 2024.

Polygon Labs president, Ryan Wyatt, is transitioning to an advisory role after over a year with the company. Polygons chief legal officer, Marc Boiron, will succeed Wyatt as the new CEO.

MetaGalaxy Land introduced the pre-alpha version of its metaverse platform, which utilizes Unreal Engine 5.

Major League Baseball became one of the first professional sports leagues to own a virtual world. Improbable, a metaverse tech firm, announced the new virtual space called “MLB virtual ballpark.”

Immutable has introduced OBS, its first Web3 racing game, as the latest addition to its game lineup.

Telescope Labs launched a comprehensive range of AI-driven solutions tailored for Web3 gaming, empowering gaming enterprises with the necessary resources to construct robust virtual economies.

Sweat Economy, a move-to-earn initiative, has revealed the introduction of Sweat Hero, an in-app game and NFT experience within their platform.

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AI-assisted game development leads to fights over rights, SEGA and Ubisoft’s first blockchain games, and Super Mario: Crypto Thief.

Valve allows AI content on Steam

Game developers can use AI-generated content in games listed on Steam. But only if it isn’t generated using copyright-infringing content.

Thats the official line from Valve, the creators of game publishing platform Steam, which it made in response to a June Reddit post thats been making the rounds about a developer who had his game rejected by Steam for using AI.

Developer Artoonu, who specializes in creating NSFW games (think furries and hentai), said the company asked him to affirmatively confirm that you own the rights to all of the IP used in the data set that trained the AI to create the assets in your game for it to be accepted, which is an impossible ask.

Valve, it seems, is worried about the legal implications of hosting AI-generated content. And perhaps they should be. Artists are furious about the fact that AI image generators are trained on their work. ChatGPT pulls massive amounts of data from the web, much of which is copyrighted. Recordings of voice artists from years ago have been dug up and are being used by companies to train AI voice models without their explicit consent.

Valve spokesperson Kaci Boyle told Gizmodo this week that the introduction of AI was making it harder to show that a developer has sufficient IP rights when they use AI to create assets, including images, text, and music.

In particular, there is some legal uncertainty relating to data used to train AI models. It is the developers responsibility to make sure they have the appropriate rights to ship their game, Boyle said.

AI is a double-edged sword. For its detractors, it is robbing artists of rights and work. For its proponents, it is bringing them a whole new suite of creative tools. Artoonu said AI brought his creativity was at an all-time high.

There were almost no limits to what kind of story I can write. I could generate almost every background I imagined and its wobbliness added a charm to it which I loved. Additionally, my efficiency doubled or was even better. I could focus on characters and dialogue instead of drawing, he said.

Gods Unchained, My Pet Hooligan launch on Epic Games Store

Immutables trading card game Gods Unchained and AMGIs My Pet Hooligan are the latest Web3 games to join the Epic Games Store.

Launched in 2019, Gods Unchained is a Magic: The Gathering-esque card game where each card is an NFT. Its executive producer Daniel Paez said in a statement that it was hard to overestimate the significance of the game launching on one of the largest PC gaming platforms in the world. Epic Games has over 230 million users.

We are extremely excited to present our game to a completely new and truly massive audience of traditional PC gamers and TCG enthusiasts. It is a natural continuation of our journey and makes good on our promise to our community to continue to bring Gods Unchained to a new and diverse player base, he said.

Meanwhile in the rabbit-themed metaverse where the big bad is basically Mark Zuckerberg… My Pet Hooligan finally announced it had been approved by Epic on June 28. It had pushed back its original launch date as it went through the approval process for shipping through the store.

The two games will join other Web3 games that have put content on Epic that include Star Atlas and Gala Games Grit.

Ubisoft’s first Web3 game

A little-known Japanese blockchain company is mopping up when it comes to collaborations with gaming giants.

Oasys, a gaming-focused chain whose founders include higher-ups from the likes of Bandai Namco and PlayStation, is working on Web3 games based on IP from Ubisoft and Sega.

Ubisoft is planning to launch its first Web3 game built on the chain. Champions Tactics: Grimoria Chronicles will be a player-versus-player tactical role-playing game.

The announcement comes after Ubisoft has found some success in the NFT space with its Rabbids NFTs and collaborations with The Sandbox. However, it also canceled a rumored NFT arena battler dubbed Project Q in January this year.

An old Sega arcade game, Sangokushi Taisen will also be getting a makeover on Oasys courtesy of blockchain gaming company Double Jump Tokyo. Its currently under development and is expected to come out by the end of this year.

Super Mario crypto-stealing malware

A popular fan-made Super Mario game installer wants to steal your crypto, warns a report from Cyble Research & Intelligence Labs.

Cyber criminals are distributing a modified version of the installer for Super Mario 3: Mario Forever containing malicious software through social media and forums.

The installer includes XMR Miner, a program that mines privacy-focused coin Monero and Umbral Stealer, which steals information from a victims machine including browser-stored logins and credentials, cryptocurrency wallet keys and session tokens.

Umbral Stealer is particularly good at allowing criminals to compromise social media and gaming accounts such as Telegram, Discord, Roblox and Minecraft. It can also screenshot and access webcam footage.

First launched in 2004, Mario Forever is an unofficial game based on the Nintendo franchise with nearly 17 million downloads through CNET alone. Fan-made versions of Super Mario are popular on PC as almost all of the official 24 original Super Mario games, as well as its spinoffs, remakes and remasters, are only available on Nintendos own platforms.

Games are an ideal method for getting users to unwittingly install malware on their computers. The large file size and general trust of game installers make it less likely for malware to be detected, while the large number of gamers provide ample targets. But there are ways to protect yourself by only downloading games from official sources, being careful when downloading mods and using a password manager instead of saving passwords in your browser.

And if some dodgy site is offering something too good to be true such as a game that hasnt been released yet, maybe dont believe it.

Hot Take: Paradise Tycoon

My initial plan for this fortnights hot take was Yuga Labs HV-MTL (see below in Other Stuff) but the limited access version doesnt seem to be available yet and for some bizarre reason I just couldnt bring myself to pay more than $1,000 for a game. Shocker, I know.

So instead I’ve taken a look at a cute little island game from Finland called Paradise Tycoon.

As the team behind it notes on Medium, Finland is not only known for being the Happiest Country In The World, for its saunas, Santa Claus and Nokia, but also for the thriving games industry. The home of Angry Birds and Clash of Clans, the country generates around $3 billion in gaming revenue a year.

Paradise Tycoons maker, Empires Not Vampires was founded in 2017 and focused on idle tycoon games before pivoting to blockchain with this newest release. It may be Web3, but Paradise Tycoon will still be familiar and not intimidating to those more familiar with Web2 games.

Set on a tropical island beware the sharks in the water that will eat and kill you its white paper dubs it a balanced interplay between collecting resources, crafting, trading, building, questing and social interaction.

The company claims the game has seen more than 200,000 downloads since Paradise Tycoon launched on Android and browsers.

Part of why it may have fared well compared to other launches is that the onboarding is easy. You can set up without connecting a wallet you dont even need an email address but the option is there if you want to. This beats many NFT games out there that demand not just your wallet and email but quite often the rights to your first child and an itemized list of everything you had for dinner last month.

Combine the ease of onboarding with adorable artwork the characters are extremely cute and it makes for a nice introduction to what the team has to offer. Sure, the crafting process could be less laborious and itd be nice to have more character customization but its a small price to pay for a playable game, which is still a rarity in Web3.

Other Stuff

Yuga Labs has launched another game that isnt the long-awaited Otherside metaverse. HV-MTL (pronounced heavy metal) Forge is a token-gated competitive crafting game. A limited version will be available to non-NFT holders. Think of it like Tamagotchi meets Homescapes meets some kind of popularity contest, said Spencer Tucker, the chief gaming officer at Yuga Labs.

Heroes of Mavia launched its beta on July 1. The MMO strategy game by Skrice Studios is based on the fantasy island of Mavia and players can build bases and engage in battles.

Web3 gaming studio Mythical Games raised $37 million in a series C extension round following a raise of $150 million in November 2021. Participants in the latest raise include Animoca Brands, a16z and ARK Invest. It plans to raise an additional $20-30 million later this year.

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Apple finally makes a play for gamers, SEC takes aim at Metaverse tokens, CryptoZoo trolled on Steam, memestock lord is GameStop’s new CEO.

Gaming on Macs to suck less

Is Apples reign as the worst platform for gaming coming to an end?

Amidst all the hype about their long-rumored VR/AR headset, slated for release in early 2024 (queueing outside the Apple Store starts in October), its not the only signal that Apple might finally be sorting out its subpar gaming offering. Its also releasing software that will make it easier to play Windows games on Mac.

Gaming on a Mac really sucks. Lots of games particularly indie and early release ones are not compatible. Keyboard mapping can be funky. To this day I have been unable to attach special tackles to my fishing rod (no, that is not innuendo) on the Mac edition of Stardew Valley.

With VR games, its even worse. If you want to spend hours watching YouTube videos, you can get most VR headsets to somewhat work with a Mac. But right now the only one that is really officially compatible seems to be the HTC Vive.

The downside of an Apple-native product is it comes with an Apple price tag: a hefty $3,499. Its hard to justify that much money for exploring the empty, laggy metaverse when you could spend a few months travelling and seeing some of the coolest places in the actual world for the same price.

The endless legal wrangling over in-game virtual assets

The Sandbox, Decentraland and Axie Infinitys tokens SAND, MANA and AXS, respectively made cameo appearances in the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) complaint against crypto exchange Binance, which was filed on June 5.

The complaint against the crypto exchange contains 13 charges, including that Binance sold unregistered securities. The SEC counted SAND, MANA and AXS among such securities meaning it considers them to be types of investments, not currencies.

Speaking at the Non Fungible Conference (NFC) in Lisbon, Portugal on June 7, The Sandbox COO Sebastien Borget said that his team were aware of the litigation but that they are not themselves subject to any.

We do not necessarily agree with the characterization thats been put in that litigation, including the qualification of SAND as a security there, he said, adding that it would not change the companys day-to-day business.

Since the announcement, eToro has said it will delist several tokens, including MANA, for US-based customers.

Making in-game currencies securities is a new twist in the mess that is bridging the gap between virtual gaming currencies and real life money.

Its not a new thing. The debate over the legal status of in-game currencies precedes even the invention of Bitcoin. Second Life got its first millionaire in 2006 and the question of who owes what to who has continued, exacerbated by the fact that many developers and creators already feel they pay large “taxes” to platforms.

Yet previous conversations have mostly been centered around making sure those that sell virtual assets or developer games on platforms are taxed correctly, not about investment and likely because Web2 virtual currencies act more like, well, currencies.

At last check, the USs IRS doesnt seem to be too concerned with virtual currencies if they dont leave a game.

Avalanche wants to help Web2 gaming leaders go Web3

The quest by blockchains to convert gaming companies to the dark side continues with Ava Labs launch of Arcad3, a program to help Web2 gaming giants launch powerful blockchain deployments.

Ava Labs, which has supported gaming companies in building out more than ten gaming subnets on Avalanche and over 100 Web3 games, will work with teams on game monetisation, marketing, user acquisition, and risk management.

Among the first companies taking part are Tokyo-based firms Gumi and GREE (not to be confused with the Chinese aircon giant, GREE Electrics), as well as Shrapnel, DeFi Kingdoms and Gunz Chain by Gunzilla.

GREEs Board of Director and SVP, Metaverse, Eiji Araki said that he believed the program would help the company stay ahead on Web3 gaming and develop relationships with the studios who are experimenting in and building the space. Its currently working on its first Web3 game, Project INCURSION.

I can’t share any details other than the project code yet, but it will be a breakthrough title that successfully combines our nearly 20 years of mobile game development knowledge with the new essence of Web3, he added in a statement.

GameStops CEO replaced by memestock trading billionaire

So long, Matt Furlong.

The GameStop CEO and former Amazon exec was axed on June 7 following the end of his 24 month contract with the gaming retailer. During that time, he oversaw GameStops transition from a primarily brick and mortar retailer into a more internet-focused firm.

Ryan Cohen will replace Furlong. Cohen made his fortune founding online pet supplies retailer Chewy but is perhaps better known for his involvement with memestocks. He successfully rallied people to invest in companies like Bed, Bath and Beyond, and GameStop itself, causing the prices to skyrocket. Critics say hes pumping and dumping.

He joined the board of GameStop in January 2021, became chairman of the board that same year and owns around 12% of the company.

It seems much of GameStops subsequent forays into crypto came from Cohen. In February this year, it inked a deal with Immutable to build out GameStops NFT marketplace. It’s due to debut later this year.

Hot take: Crypto-themed games on Steam

Given a lack of interesting Web3 games that have landed on my desk over the past few weeks, lets talk about non-blockchain based games that are about crypto.

Steam may not allow crypto games but it can do little about trading simulators and Bitcoin mining tycoon RPGs. None are hits. Most seem tongue in cheek.

Take Coin Invaders, for instance, which tells players it must save Bitcoin by destroying altcoins. Its basically Space Invaders with extra steps, notes one reviewer.

Or perhaps youll enjoy Crypto is Dead, in which an attack has crippled the world economy and physical currency has returned. Its up to you to determine which bills are genuine and which are fake. Gripping stuff.

Then you can choose from the half a dozen-odd mining tycoon simulators which require you to build mining rigs and businesses to cash in on cryptocurrency to varying degrees of complexity. One version even has a simplified edition for kids.

But perhaps the award for most amusing crypto-themed non-crypto game goes to CryptoZoo, which came out this February. I know what youre thinking and the answer is no: Logan Paul hasnt yet made good on his promise of reviving the zombie project that earned him a whole series on crypto sleuth Coffeezillas YouTube channel.

Instead the task of creating a CryptoZoo game was taken up by Rye Bread Games, who describes him or herself on Steam as a trader who makes games for fun.

According to its deck, CryptoZoo is the best CryptoZoo on the market the best of its kind the best there ever will be

It may not involve NFTs, but at least players are getting their long-awaited chance to breed animals in scientifically impossible pairings.

Other Stuff

Heroes of Mavia will release the first phase of its Beta game for Land NFT owners on June 30. The larger community will be able to play the game in the second phase from Sept 1 to Oct 31.

Amazons Prime Gaming partnerships with Web3 companies continue. Its gearing up for another deal with Mythical Games Blankos Block Party whereby Prime members will be able to claim exclusive bundles for use in the game.

Ahead of the expected launch of Otherside: Legends of the Mara this summer, Yuga Labs is ramping up the merch machine with KodaPendants for holders of Otherside Kodas and Vessels. The pendants are the first relic in the Otherside Relics by Gucci collection.

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GTA 6 crypto and NFT integration speculation mounts, Top Gear and Dr Who in The Sandbox, and Thailand’s rubbish NFT hunt for tourists.

Grand Theft Auto VI crypto rumors

Rumors that the upcoming Grand Theft Auto VI (GTA 6) will incorporate cryptocurrency and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have once again surfaced, sparking speculation among fans.

Posts shared on Twitter suggest that GTA 6 will be a play-to-earn game and that in-game items such as cars and weapons will be NFTs.

GTA creators Rockstar Games are yet to weigh in on whether there’s any truth to these claims, but there seems to be little solid evidence backing the rumors.

The company cracked down on the use of crypto in GTA in November last year and sent cease and desist letters to companies running public servers with blockchain integrations a blow to several game makers that had built their games on the platform.

Given that GTA 5, released in 2015, has sold over 180 million copies and generated a staggering $8 billion in revenue, it seems unlikely that Rockstar would drastically alter the successful formula of the franchise, the latest instalment of which is expected next year or in 2025.

Of course, there could be a crypto element but not necessarily the one crypto bros want. Game Rant suggests that it is more likely for Rockstar Games to use crypto as the butt of its in-game jokes.

Doctor Who, Top Gear join The Sandbox

Sci-fi series Doctor Who and British motoring show Top Gear, both popular BBC franchises, will enter the metaverse via The Sandbox after announcing a collaboration with the virtual world platform.

In partnership with Web3 company Reality+, is set to launch the space later this year.

Nicki Sheard, President Brands & Licensing, BBC Studios believes that while the metaverse is still in its infancy, it may shape how we consume and experience entertainment in the future.

“Im looking forward to seeing how fans interact with our brands in this space. This project forms part of BBC Studios broader ambitious plans to grow our brands into new categories, with innovative technology and platforms forming an integral part of this, she said.

BBC Studios, which is a commercial production company under the BBC umbrella, will join 400 other entertainment brands that The Sandbox has worked with including Warner Music Group, Ubisoft, Gucci, The Walking Dead and Adidas.

STEPN integrates Apple Pay for its NFTs

Move-to-earn app STEPN is making it easier to buy NFTs for its game by adding an in-app Apple Pay payment option.

Users will be able to buy SPARK credits using fiat, with ten spark credits being equivalent to 1 USDC, which can then be used to purchase the NFTs.

It eliminates the need to connect a separate crypto wallet and streamlines the payment process, making it easier than ever for our community to access our offerings, said STEPN on Medium.

The catch is that purchasing sneakers with fiat will be more costly, which STEPN attributes to the “taxation” on each in-app purchase.

Onboarding has long been a challenge for wider adoption of Web3 games, and STEPN is not an exception. Its onboarding process is cumbersome and users have to buy the sneaker NFTs working out which one is best for you is a task and a half itself from a third-party marketplace and transfer it into the in-wallet app.

But the company could have more in the works when it comes to making onboarding easier.

Our integration with Apple Pay is just the beginning of our vision to make Web3 technology accessible to all, it added.

Battle of Titans dev competition back for second season

MatchboxDAO is bringing back its Battle of Titans Web3 racing game back for a second season this week.

Launched on Sunday, dev teams from over 60 Web3 companies including Immutable, Starknet and Fantom will compete in a fully on-chain Mario Kart-Style game.

Each car is a smart contract that must be programmed to get to the end of the track while factoring in attacking and defending against other players using bananas, shells and shields.

The first edition of the game in January included teams from Ledger, Polygon, NEAR, Yield Guild Games and more, with a dev team from Uniswap emerging as the winners.

The new season will also add a community component where viewers will be able to vote for their favourite team.

Captain Tsubasa Web3 game debuts governance token

Captain Tsubasa Rivals, a football game based on the popular manga Captain Tsubasa, has launched a governance token.

Web3 companies Thirdverse Group and BLOCKSMITH&Co debuted the game in January 2023. Players can train characters from the manga and play against each other in matches.

Game producer Shun Fujiyoshi, who currently heads BLOCKSMITH&Co, said that various mechanisms are in place to maintain the value of utility tokens.

These measures include in-game consumption points and mechanisms to control price fluctuations caused by speculative trading, he said in a statement.

Created in 1981 by Yoichi Takahashi, 70 million copies of the original Captain Tsubasa manga have been sold in Japan alone. It has been translated into over 20 languages.

Illuvium raises additional $10M in funding

Crypto venture firm Framework Ventures has invested $10 million in gaming studio Illuvium, which will be used to accelerate the development of the Illuvium Universe.

Australia-based Illuvium said that the new funding would give them a comfortable runway through the launch of the open beta and beyond.

It is planning an upcoming open beta featuring its city builder Zero, open-world monster hunter Overworld and autobattler Arena.

The company previously raised $5m in a Framework Ventures-backed seed round in March 2021. It also made $72 million during an NFT land sale in June last year.

Hot take: Collecting NFTs for a tiny bit of Thai chicken

This edition I caught a Web3 project in the wild.

Queueing for tickets to go up the MahaNakhon, Thailands tallest skyscraper, a poster off to one side next to a coffee advert and emergency defibrillator caught my attention: Amazing Thailand NFTs season 2. Travel to earn amazing expat NFTs.

Easily persuaded, I downloaded the app.

In mid-April this year the Tourism Administration of Thailand (TAT) launched the second round of NFTs for an NFT tourism project it’s piloting. Using an app called YAK, tourists can check in at various locations around the country and in return receive a travel NFT.

PokemonGo for backpackers and passport stamp addicts sounds appealing. The reality is a bit more frustrating.

Crypto folk wont like how much personal info you have to put in to get set up. Not just an email, but also your phone number and a one time passcode.

The app and I disagreed several times as to whether I was within the required radius of the sites I visited. While the MahaNakhon NFT was obtained without fuss, I somehow acquired an NFT for Pattaya City and Phuket, even though I didn’t go to either.

The idea is that you earn while travelling by getting discounts depending on how many NFTs you get. In many cases, getting the offer seems to require buying something else such as getting two free pieces of chicken if you spend over 1,000 Thai baht ($29) in a restaurant a tall order in a country where you can have a nice meal for a fifth of that.

In fact, many of the offers didnt seem to be exclusive to the NFT app at all and were applicable without the app.

Now, apparently though it didnt say so on the poster the game was only supposed to run until the end of April so maybe all the good offers were gone, I cant be sure.

But for me the biggest question was how to get the NFTs out of the app. They seem to be on a native chain of Thailand-based cryptocurrency platform Bitkub. As far as I could tell, it required creating Bitkub account to move them, which in turn required a Thai phone number to receive the one time passcode.

Overall it needed a bit of tweaking but I liked the concept of being able to collect POAPs for places Ive visited as a tourist. The discounts were lousy but not really necessary: if you actually got the NFT corresponding to the place you visited, collecting for the sake of collecting would have been enough.

A revamped, global version would be nice please.

Other stuff

Gods Unchained unveiled a new roadmap on May 23. Among its plans are some for new game modes, a creator program, a soft launch for mobile and new card sets.

Blockchain gaming platform Gala Games will launch a Web3 poker platform with PokerGO, with a beta slated for release in June 2023.

Game retailer GameStop will distribute Telos-based games on its upcoming Web3 gaming launchpad GameStop Playr.

Gaming metaverse Star Atlas launched the latest version of its showroom on June 1 with new flyable ships, single-player ground racing and an updated dogfighting arena.

Web3 game publisher Fenix Games is teaming up with platform Immutable to help game studios by “curating, advising and publishing best-in-class live services to Immutables ecosystem of games.”

Nike’s NFTs will start being incorporated into EA Sports games, according to a June 1 statement from the company. No word yet on which titles.

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Illuvium’s many marketing controversies, Assasin’s Creed’s NFT cubes, Fortnite CEO salty about death of metaverse, Aurory Prologue review.

Illuvium CEO: controversial comments a win/win for the project

Illuvium CEO Kieran Warwick has once again been in the thick of a controversy, this time taking aim at applicants seeking to join Illuvium DAOs marketing sub-council.

Warwick, who is not coincidentally also the game studios chief marketing officer, took to Twitter on May 9 to say that the DAO faced a significant challenge, with the sub-DAO hopefuls vying for the gig as they need to possess the requisite marketing experience. This upset the hopefuls, given the backhander about their lack of experience.

Not one to let an opportunity go to waste, Warwick then issued a media release about the controversy stirred by its CEO, Kieran Warwick.”

The marketing sub-council is one of four sub-councils within the Illuvium DAO focused on particular tasks related to developing Illuviums products and community. The others relate to community, game and strategy, with the idea being to draw on community expertise to develop the project.

Sub-council members are paid in Illuvium tokens.

The vote ultimately went ahead. The CEO and co-founder of game platform Arcade2Earn, Josh Poole, and former Love Island contestant and DJ Sam Withers joined Warwick on the sub-council despite the media release stating Withers had withdrawn his nomination due to the criticism. Two pseudonymous members of the Illuvium DAO, Fight4ETH and Kingscoriox (they gave their first names as Kenneth and Jason, respectively), were also elected to the sub-council.

The new additions to decision-making on the marketing front may result in a change of strategy from garnering headlines from Warwicks entertaining but controversial Twitter barneys.

In a discussion on Discord about his sub-council tweet, Warwick sensed an opportunity in the downvoting he was receiving, stating that it warranted contacting friends at coin telegraph. Thats us. He also suggested that Withers decision to temporarily rescind his nomination could be a media opportunity.

Maybe this was a big brain marketing move by Sam and its going to get picked up by coin telegraph Kidding (slightly) but I have reached out to Sam and apologized, he said.

The press release also highlighted a previous controversy in February, when Warwick proposed partnering with Su Zhu, the disgraced founder of Three Arrows Capital, for a crypto gaming session.

He described the Su Zhu incident as a win/win situation on Discord at the time due to its potential for multiple articles, DAO coordination and exposure to new audiences.

In actual game news, Illuvium launched its Overworld Beta 2 on May 18, bringing new features and 30 new Illuvials to the game. The number of beta participants will also expand from 30,000 to 75,000. It claims it has two million registered beta users. It is also planning to bring out Illuvium: Zero on mobile this year.

Is ownership in Web3 gaming ‘bullshit’?

The idea of ownership in Web3 games may be hurting adoption more than it is helping, according to a Twitter thread and article by Vader Research, a consultancy company for Web3 gaming economics, that ignited some debate among the Web3 gaming community.

Our industry is misleading players and investors with the ownership narrative, the company argued on Twitter.

Despite someone holding an NFT in a wallet, game devs retain significant control over the asset, including the ability to change metadata and the ability to blacklist NFTs.

Web3 gaming has certain benefits but also has limitations. Exaggerating the capabilities of the technology will likely increase the polarization between NFT haters and NFT maxis. Acknowledging limitations and weaknesses will help us attract more developers and players from web2 gaming, Vader Research wrote.

But while there are nuances to be aware of if a game shuts down, your items shut down with it Magic Eden Chief Gaming Officer Chris Akhavan still says ownership is the right word.

Just like in real life, there are limitations with what you can do with things you own. You can own a plane, but that doesnt mean you can use the plane in ways that violate FAA regulations, he told Cointelegraph.

What Web3 ownership gives you is the freedom to control your ownership of game items, whether you want to buy, sell, trade or gift an item to a friend is all up to you. Thats absolutely fundamental to the concept of ownership.

Assassins Creed smart collectibles promise customers real-life cubes

Assassins Creed, one of gaming giant Ubisofts most popular titles, is getting an NFT collection. Like many Web2 crossover projects, its using a fancy name that is not “NFT.”

The smart collectibles, which will debut on Polygon, are the brainchild of Integral Reality Labs (IRL), a United States-based Web3 company.

Those that snag one of the 1,500 passes will gain access to exclusive perks via IRLs companion app. They will also get a physical 3D cube featuring unique traits and containing an embedded near-field communication (NPC) chip.

Ubisoft is considered one of the more NFT-friendly Web2 gaming behemoths. NFT collections have also been created based on its Rabbids franchise.

The NFTs will not be useable in actual Assassins Creed games and IRL noted that there is no direct link between Assassins Creed games or game content and IRL Smart Collectibles.

Epic Games CEO salty about the death of the Metaverse

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has taken exception to a Business Insider article by Web3 critic Ed Zitron about the death of the metaverse.

He suggested organizing 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.

The article in question posits that metaverse hype has been replaced by the new, more promising trend of generative AI. If you go by how many self-styled crypto experts have updated their LinkedIn to AI expert, its an easy concept to get on board with.

And with Mark Zuckerberg as its number one promoter, it is hard to take the metaverse seriously. The word has become synonymous with his badly-animated cartoon avatars that resemble something from a budget childrens TV show as opposed to a groundbreaking technological feat.

But both Zitron and Sweeney are talking past each other because they have very different definitions of what the metaverse is. Zitron at one point compares it to platforms like Fortnite, which he describes as large online games, while Sweeney thinks theyre the same thing.

Until everyone can agree on a definition, the metaverse continues to be a confusing, nebulous concept. Blockchain companies continue to strive for progress toward the idea, whatever it ends up being.

Game review: Aurory Prologue for Adventures

Aurory launched its highly anticipated Prologue for Adventures last week as a closed alpha offering a sneak peek at its upcoming Adventures game.

Players can explore the village of Blanche in the Solana-based games fictional world of Tokane. Its still quite limited and theres not much to do except for bet tokens on Speed Blitz, a 1v1 auto-battling game.

Whether it works depends on whether theres a player available betting the same amount to compete against. It took a couple of attempts for this reviewer to find the time when other players were online (morning UTC+8 bad, evening UTC+8 good).

While you get to choose the Neftie (a Pokemon-esque creature) and the amount you want to bet, thats pretty much all the control you have over the outcome, and the battle happens so quickly its a bit of a mystery what even happened at all.

Part of the lack of players is likely down to the high cost of obtaining an Aurorian to try out the game. The collections floor price currently stands at a hefty 20.98 SOL ($423).

Truth be told, theres minimal gameplay in the alpha, which is expected. The ability to text chat with other players is a nice touch considering how many MMOs arent adding it in early versions.

Overall, for an early look at what the team is building, its satisfying enough and warrants a return when more features are added.

Adventures is ultimately the game that Aurory believes will have the broadest appeal. It follows the release of turn-based strategy battler Tactics, which came out late last year.

Other Stuff

My Pet Hooligans alpha 1.5 release has been delayed due to uncertainty about how long it will take it to go through Epic Games QA process, according to a tweet by the company on May 11.

Axie Infinity: Origins has finally made it to the Apple app stores in Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Mexico, Venezuela, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam. Sky Mavis announced on May 17 that it would join the computer-based Sky Mavis Hub and some regional Google Play Stores as a way of accessing the still-popular game.

Trouble in Decentraland’s red light district, “no mercy” for Vulcan Forged autoclickers, District 9 director’s immersive blockchain shooter.

Theres trouble brewing in the red-light region of Decentraland called District X.

The ongoing dispute between the leader of District X and a group of community members came to a head with the Decentraland DAO asked to weigh in on the districts future.

Decentraland districts are collectively owned areas on the map built around a particular theme, in District Xs case: adult content. However, its seen little development in the five years since it was established.

Member Morph submitted a proposal on April 12 that the DAO and the Decentraland Foundation should ask OpenSea to mark the districts land NFTs as stolen until a solution can be found for the issues in the District X community.

Morph alleges that the District X custodian, RobL, took the role without contributors input and his Wyoming-based LLC called District X Land Holdings controls the multisig wallet that holds the districts land. He claims the district pivoted from its original intent, while little development has occurred, and the worst offense is that RobL allegedly attempted to sell the entire district.

Morphs proposal has two more stages to go through until it passes. A preliminary vote showed 73.94% of voting power allocated to support it. He tells Cointelegraph that it was great to see the community come out and make a majority decision.

However, RobL denies Morphs claims about how he had handled the districts land, telling Magazine:

There was a claim that I somehow marketed the district for sale, which is also nonsense.

However, just to be clear, selling districts is not illegal. Many district owners have over the past two or so years sold their districts, he says, clarifying that he himself has never sold any.

RobL says that his voting power in the DAO alone is enough to prevent the poll from passing. But even if it passed the final stage, he believes it would not be enacted.

Why? Because [the] Decentraland Foundation and the DAO all know full well the proposals are filled with misinformation and are at face value patently false Moreover, Decentraland DAO has absolutely no control over OpenSea, he says.

The Decentraland Foundation says its an external party to the situation and is not involved in the matter. At the time of writing it has not been called on by the community to participate in the proposal.

District 9 directors vision for blockchain game like an immersive film

One upcoming shooter to watch for later this year is Off The Grid, the first title from indie studio Gunzilla Games. 

A cyberpunk-style battle royale third-person shooter, the blockchain game is set on the fictional Teardrop Island in the Pacific Ocean, where corporations battle for resources. 

Filmmaker Neill Blomkamp of District 9 and Elysium fame is on board as chief visionary officer. Gunzilla Games co-founder Vlad Korolov tells Magazine that Blomkamp is helping turn the game into an interactive player-driven movie.

Unlike other battle royale games out there, Off The Grid is being developed as a narrative-driven game that will immerse our players into the universe we created.

The game will be free-to-play with new in-game items regularly added for players to collect and will be available to play on Xbox, PlayStation and PC. Korolov says the game runs on Avalanche subnet Gunz blockchain, but the aim was to make the experience for our future players as familiar as any other traditional game on consoles. 

The announcement follows the release of several other blockchain shooter games, including Undead Blocks, and Korolov says that shooting things could be the key to mass adoption.

Shooter games are the most popular genre in video games today, uniting over half a billion users. Its only natural that developers and gamers alike want to explore their potential in the Web3 space with a genre that already has such a strong user base, Korolov explains. 

While they may not be easy to master, shooter games are easy to learn, pick up and play.

They provide an accessible entry point for new users to explore the true benefits of Web3 gaming, such as decentralized in-game item trading and player-owned economies, he adds. 

Vulcan Forged showing no mercy to autoclickers

Vulcan Forged is cracking down on autoclickers, according to a Discord post on April 10. 

It said it had received reports that some players were using autoclickers with its new in-game foraging system and vowed to thoroughly investigate, adding, Offenders will be shown no mercy. 

Autoclickers, which mimic mouse clicks to game the system for rewards and cryptocurrency, have long been an issue for Web3 studios. Adam Bendjemil, head of business development at BNB Smart Chain, tells Magazine that games offering daily rewards and other financial incentives are a prime target for autoclickers and warns they can skew the tokenomics of a game. 

If the game is unbalanced, unfortunately, the game is going to die. Players wont be interested in playing it, and [this] benefits no one but the person using the clickers.

Although studios can do things like blocking IP addresses or adding captcha verifications, they are constantly battling against ever-adapting, ever-more innovative bots.

Theyre very smart people behind [the bots], so its a tough battle. As of today, its still a problem, Bendjemil adds.

The use of bots also presents an issue when it comes to gauging Web3 player numbers. Its a problem Pedro Herrera, head of research and analytics at DappRadar, understands only too well. But Herrera notes that as Web3 games become more complex, were likely to see fewer bots, as its just not worth the bother. 

If youre playing a first-person shooter, you wont be able to program a bot. I mean, you can, but its not worth the effort But definitely, idle games are the ones that will be exploited. RPGs, FPSs [and] MMOs will be very difficult to exploit in that manner, he says.

Aurorys Adventures game: Pokemon meets The Matrix

The team at Aurory is aiming to roll out its new game, Adventures, next week.

Aurory head of production and executive producer Jonathan Campeau tells Magazine that in version zero of the game, players will be able to visit lands and capture creatures called Nefties through battles. Campeau says, The slogan that I used at GDC a lot for what Aurory is is Pokemon meets The Matrix for the Roblox generation.

The highly-anticipated launch follows the release of Aurorys first game, Tactics, in November last year. But Campeau says that Adventures is likely to appeal to a broader range of gamers. 

The limited rollout next month will be followed by a full public launch by the end of the summer.

NFT Worlds respawns and starts again

I would love to have schadenfreude where Minecraft has this whole story 10 years from now where they banned this group that was building a game on it and then that group went and built the replacement for Minecraft. That would be very entertaining to me.

So said someone in a Twitter Spaces on April 20 when the team behind NFT Worlds sat down for almost two hours to talk with its community about its plans for a rebrand after a difficult year.

Their troubles started in July when Minecraft creators Mojang Studios said that NFTs and other blockchain tech were not something they would generally support or allow on their servers. 

The move was a blow to NFT Worlds, whose entire gaming system was built on Minecraft, and forced it to pivot to its own soon-to-be-released game engine.

So, has Minecraft inadvertently spawned the monster that will eat it? NFT Worlds believes that Minecraft has lost its spark and, particularly since it was bought by Microsoft, hasnt been as innovative as it once was. 

It thinks that it can create a better alternative that will make it easier to create servers and mods, as well as allow Web3 integrations. 

Were here to build what we wish Minecraft had become, had it continued on its innovation, said ArkDev on Twitter last month.

The Sandbox: Irish pubs and underground cities

I spent a lot of time collecting plungers in The Sandbox’s Rabbids game last September. I have now upgraded to other items.

The platform rolled out its April Festival at the start of this month, and theres still time to check it out before it closes on May 2.

The festival features The Sandboxs typical mix of brand collaborations, creative builds and cultural projects. While the client can be a bit slow and buggy at times, Ive always liked the attention to detail in the different games.

First, theres a really cool build called Chongqing Underground City based on Cixin Lius short story The Wandering Earth. The first quest involves collecting 88 dumplings scattered around the scene. As with a lot of The Sandbox builds, its full of NPCs, which gives the impression there are a lot more people there than there actually are. 

That said, being alone in a crowded room is slightly preferable to the monstrous bulging peopleberg that occurs when everyone tries to spawn into the same place at once. 

But in an attempt to make the metaverse less lonely, I tried to get my grandad to take a look by visiting The Shebeen, an Irish pub. Because why open your front door and walk 100 meters down the road to an actual Irish pub in Ireland when you can collect shamrocks in a virtual version of one online? 

Besides, The Shebeen has way more flags, a deer with glow-in-the-dark antlers and a beer garden that doesnt smell like a graveyard for every cigarette that has ever been smoked.

He looked for a grand total of about five seconds, said “that’s nice” and went back to watching the Manchester United game. 

Whats coming up

Crypto Unicorns has released two Team RPG prototypes to community members. Match-3 and Auto-Battler came out on April 13 and are accessible to those with a MetaMask wallet containing five or more unicorn NFTs.

The Mutant Ape Yacht Club is getting its own game. Novel Labs and Faraway announced this month they are working on Serum City, a city-building game that will star Mutant Apes. Its expected in Q3 this year.

Unioverse will launch an alpha of Proving Grounds on April 26. Those who sign up before that day will get the chance to play the game and use their Reyu NFTs as avatars for the first time.

Got gaming gossip, Discord drama or underappreciated projects you think I should be writing about? Please direct all tips, tricks and tirades to me on Twitter at @quinnishvili. 

First-person shooter Shrapnel blows gamers away at GDC, Otherside’s Second Trip vs Fortnite, Callan gets killed by zombies over and over.

Shrapnel: The game at GDC everyones talking about

As the annual Game Developers Conference in San Francisco came to a close last week, there was one game that stood out from the rest. Shrapnel, a highly anticipated first-person shooter in the Web3 space, was the talk of the conference thanks to its stunning graphics and immersive gameplay. 

Select visitors were treated to a hands-on experience with the pre-alpha version of the game. Set in the year 2044, Shrapnel takes place in a post-apocalyptic world. Players must navigate the sacrifice zone, where they collect NFT gear and a compound named Sigma. They can win by reaching an extraction point where they can escape with their loot. If they die, they lose their loot. 

Shrapnel founder Mark Long told Cointelegraph at GDC that for his team, its all about the gameplay first. He added that while the demo took place behind closed doors this time, more people would be able to play Shrapnel next month.

Anyone at ConsenSys will be able to play it on the show floor, he says, referring to the conference in Austin, Texas, in late April.

EVE Online, MapleStory to get Web3 treatment

While Shrapnel was hogging the limelight, EVE Online creators CCP Games announced they raised $40 million in a round led by a16z to develop a new AAA title set in the EVE universe.

EVE Online is a space-themed massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). Launched in 2003, its game includes over 7,000 solar systems and two decades of player-created history. Players can choose their own paths and professions in the game, focusing on battles, mining, exploration and industry, as they interact with its complex in-game economy and hierarchy. 

Its not a game for the faint-hearted: some describe playing the game as having a second job. In addition, the increasing cost of playing EVE Online has long been a point of contention between players and CCP Games. 

As with every time a Web2 game studio expresses an interest in Web3 think Neopets metaverse, for instance the worry among players is that its little more than a cynical cash grab. 

The details of what the blockchain EVE game will look like are still under wraps but the company has made clear its not going to impact EVE’s global server, known as Tranquility. Last year, the company came out and said that they had no plans to add blockchain technology to Tranquility.

While we remain intrigued by the technology, for us, NFT stands for Not for Tranquility, company CEO Hilmar Veigar Petursson said at the time. 

Related: What are Web3 games, and how do they work?

The website for this project, which suggests the name is Project Awakening, states the game is separate from current and previously disclosed projects, including EVE Online.

Its not the only traditional gaming brand thats recently announced its jumping on the Web3 bandwagon. Gaming company Nexon is bringing its popular game, MapleStory, to the blockchain. 

Claiming over 260 million players, the game allows players to explore deserts, tundras, underwater kingdoms, lost civilizations and more. The South Korean firm follows other players in the region, such as Square Enix and Bandai Namco, who have previously dabbled in Web3. 

Related: Justin Sun vs. SEC, Do Kwon arrested, 180M player game taps Polygon: Asia Express

Bazooka Tango wants to revive indie card game Shardbound

Indie game Shardbound is also getting a Web3 revival, from gaming studio Bazooka Tango. A tactics card game, Shardbound initially launched through Kickstarter. But it never made a full release, and interest faded.

Thats when Bazooka Tango came in and decided to give it a new lease of life, according to the companys co-founder, Stephan Sherman. 

The developers at SpiritWalk had been very close friends of ours and we had always been a fan of the product, Sherman tells Cointelegraph.

Once we had the opportunity, we talked to them about picking up where it left off and bringing it the final mile, so it had a chance to reach a worldwide audience.

The Shardbound beta will be open to the public around mid-year 2023 and available on mobile in 2024.

Othersides Second Trip to Fortnite

Yuga Labs Otherside returned for its Second Trip on March 25. The event saw over 7,200 concurrent players on the platform, with Improbable, the company behind the tech, once again showcasing its impressive capabilities.

Unlike the First Trip in the summer of last year, the newest iteration had a bit more gameplay beyond avatars running around doing backflips. Participants in the Second Trip teamed up to collect blobs. The winning team, Team Glacia, earned virtual winged helmets.

On Crypto Twitter, it wasnt long before the Fortnite comparisons started rolling in, both positive and negative. The company garnered praise for how much it has managed to achieve in such a short space of time this time last year, Otherside was but a rumor, officially launching at the end of April but others quickly fired back that the comparisons were inaccurate and unhelpful. 

Its not yet clear what Yuga Labs has planned for gameplay. But then again, there are only so many ways one can collect virtual objects before it all starts to feel the same. Game Fund Partner Jonah Blake tweeted:

The otherside is not competing with Fortnite creative. They are 2 different things. They both compete for attention, and attention will be whatever is on a deed or a fortnite island. The creators will drive that attention. Brands will post on all of them.

Following the Second Trip, Yuga Labs announced several new updates. First, it looks like the company will be teaming up with Gucci for something related to the Otherside.

Its also rolled out Legends of the Mara, which Yuga Labs said is a collection-based 2D strategy game that picks up where the events of Second Trip leave off.

With it, were going to learn more about Kodas, including their origins and their primal relationship with Otherside, encounter some new apprentices in the form of the Mara, and learn more about the story of Otherside throughout LOTM, Otherside tweeted.

Related: Otherside Metaverse demo kicks off with 4,500 participants: highlights

Magic Eden gaming hub

NFT marketplace Magic Eden started pivoting to gaming last year, and this month it finally rolled out its gaming hub. 

The idea, according to its gaming CEO Chris Arkhavan, is to turn the platform into a hub for Web3 gaming where users can find new games, buy NFTs and view leaderboards. Its not hosting games on its platform but has plans for more community-focused integrations in the future.

Hot Take Undead Blocks

So, Bitcoin up today?

Its not the first thing you expect to hear as you walk nervously around the neighborhood of Sanborn, New York, waiting for the zombies to inevitably descend on you, but it helps release a bit of the tension. Your character shouting to the moon as the hordes descend is as good a war cry as any, I suppose. 

The beta of Undead Blocks, by Wagyu Games and Kevuru and released on ImmutableX, launched last month. Dubbed a kill-to-earn game, Wagyu Games executive director Grant Haseley is a former Goldman Sachs analyst who set out with the aim of making an easy-to-learn and addictive game that is playable with friends. 

Easy for everyone except me. I have the hand-eye coordination of a drunk three-year-old and am much more at ease pottering around Stardew Valley planting potatoes than trying to survive the apocalypse. 

Being able to control the unwieldy pistol improves slightly when I turn down the mouse sensitivity by about 90%. At least, I stop dying after killing just one zombie.

That said, I can still appreciate that it looks cool. And Ive heard positive reviews from people who have used a game controller you can use the ones for your Xbox or Playstation as opposed to a Mac.

Overall, the look and general playability of blockchain games are so much better than they were a year ago, and Undead Blocks is no exception. It has crisp graphics, a cool soundtrack in the intro and cringe-in-a-mildly-amusing-way musings from the avatar about crypto.

Whats Coming Up

Amazon NFT and Gaming platform In January, it was revealed that Amazon was building an NFT and gaming platform. The e-commerce giant has remained tight-lipped about the plans but unconfirmed reports suggest something could be launched on April 24. 

Imposters This Among Us-esque social deduction game will launch a beta for verified holders on March 31. It was delayed from the original date of March 24 due to issues with migrating the game to Unreal Engine 5.1. 

CGC Online The Crypto Gamers Conference is back for another year from April 17-18. Tickets for the virtual event are available free online and the deadline for speaker applications closes April 10. 

Eternal Dragons Blockchain game Eternal Dragons will hold its first official PvP tournament from March 31 to April 2. Theres a prize pool of over $15,000 USDC up for grabs. 

The Glimmering Blockchain-based Dungeons and Dragons game The Glimmering will launch its play platform on March 30. NFT holders will be able to sign up to play games virtually. 

Immutable Passport Immutable is set to roll out its gaming passport in April. The noncustodial wallet and authentication solution aims to streamline user onboarding to its games.

Got tips, questions or comments? Please direct all vitriol, abuse and declarations of love to me on Twitter @quinnishvili.

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Is play-to-earn really dead or will the dead rise again? Teen makes $1.6M playing Yuga Labs’ NFT game, and first impressions of Illuvium: Zero.

In this inaugural edition of Cointelegraphs monthly Web3 gaming column, we highlight some of the top stories and events in the blockchain gaming space over the past few weeks, as well as upcoming releases.

Fortnite player sells Dookey Dash prize

It has been a little over a month since NFT behemoth Yuga Labs, the company behind Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and other top NFT collections, rolled out the skill-based game and NFT mint, Dookey Dash. 

Sent on a quest by a dog called Gary, players have to navigate through the sewers, dodging obstacles and collecting power-ups in pursuit of a golden key.

For three weeks, holders of Sewer Pass NFTs competed for the top spot on the leaderboard and different prizes. Though BAYC and sister collection Mutant Ape Yacht Club holders could claim a free pass, buying one wasnt cheap. The floor price currently stands at 2.4 Ether (ETH) ($3,888)

Thats a lot to play Temple Run in a toilet.

Yuga Labs reported the game was played more than 7.5 million times, equivalent to 80 years of game time and an average of about 28 hours per pass. Over 9,000 pass holders used $APE to purchase boosts, about one-third of active players. That said, it is not clear how many individual people played the game. Only 51% of the Sewer Passes have unique owners, meaning a whole lot of people are hoarding multiple passes. 

A bonus round of the game, Dookey Dash: Toad Mode, closed its leaderboard on March 1. 

The top prize, The Key, went to Kyle Jackson, better known as Mongraal on Twitch and YouTube. The 18-year-old professional Fortnite player, no doubt treasuring the very important loot he had just acquired, promptly listed The Key for sale on OpenSea.

Though he wanted 2,222 ETH ($3.6 million) for it, he ultimately sold it this week for 1,000 ETH ($1.6 million) to American scrap metal CEO Adam Weitsman.

According to Spencer Tucker, Yuga Labs new chief gamer officer, the game is just the beginning of how the company is thinking of connecting the dots between NFTs, gaming and community engagement. 

We want these things to be fun and weird, while also continuing to push the boundaries of what people perceive of the NFT industry, he said.

More than a jpeg, its all about utility, innovation, creating interactive experiences and hopefully onboarding new players to the web3 space. 

Dungeons & Dragons reverses NFT ban

Wizards of the Coast, the publisher of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), was forced to walk back proposed changes to its Open Game License (OGL) in January. For more than two decades, its OGL has allowed people to make D&D derivative projects, like graphic novels and plays.

Among the now-dropped changes was a ban on NFTs and other blockchain integrations. Ironic, considering Wizards of the Coast is owned by Hasbro, which itself debuted a Power Rangers NFT collection on the Wax blockchain last year.

The company also sought to introduce royalties payable by content creators of a certain size and new powers for Wizards to terminate the license of projects.

The drama impacted U.S. company Gripnr, which is building a D&D game with NFT integrations called The Glimmering. Its CEO and co-founder, Brent McCrossen, said he was  thrilled that the updates had been reversed and that the published rules and lore of D&D had been moved to a Creative Commons license, making it freely available for use in perpetuity.  

We were not going to simply pack up our belongings and head home, he said.

NFTs and other potential emerging technologies are not a valid reason for revoking the OGL. We will object in a similar manner to any potential future attempts to restrict blockchain use; it is fundamental to GRIPNRs core business, he added.

While the Wizards of the Coasts ban hasnt ultimately panned out, it follows similar moves to ban NFT mods from Minecraft and Grand Theft Auto servers. 

Yet whereas Grand Theft Auto makers Rockstar Games sent out cease and desist letters to builders shortly after the ban was announced, Mojang Studios which is owned by Microsoft doesnt seem to be enforcing it, as NFT games still exist on Minecraft servers.

Square Enix to Launch NFT-based game Symbiogenesis

Elsewhere on the dark and violent crossroads between traditional and Web3 gaming, Square Enix has released more details about its upcoming NFT game. Symbiogenesis was first announced in November as an Ethereum-based game. Its since switched to Polygon and plans to launch in Spring this year. 

Among traditional game makers, Square Enix has been one of the most bullish on Web3. Its president, Yosuke Matsuda, doubled down on that position in his New Years letter in January where he predicted the growth of a more mature blockchain gaming market over the coming year.

The game will be set on a fantasy floating continent and players will have to unlock storylines through NFTs, which can be bought, traded or earned through completing missions. 

Other AAA gaming studios in East Asia are also getting involved in Web3 projects. But while theyve generally been more willing to experiment than their U.S. counterparts, there are still some holdouts. 

The rumor in Kyoto is that the powers that be at Nintendo HQ arent keen on NFTs, despite some vague public statements of interest so dont expect Pokemon NFTs any time soon.

And even the crypto-curious firms remain cautious. Nobody is risking their most valuable IP just yet, preferring to test out the response with lesser-known titles.

Wagyu Games rolls out kill-to-earn zombie shooter

One of the most highly anticipated Web3 games of the past few months, Wagyu Games rolled out its first-person shooter zombie game, Undead Blocks, at the end of February.

With all the hallmarks of a classic zombie shooter including a multiplayer mode Undead Blocks claimed around 2,500 active daily players during its beta. 

But the full launch now includes kill-to-earn features for NFT holders. Players can earn in-game token ZBUX for slaying the living dead, which can be traded or used to buy NFT weapons and upgrade. The game also has a second token, UNDEAD, for governance that can be staked for rewards.

The company has been hyping up the rewards for players at a time when other games are becoming more cautious in their approach to rewards and tokenomics. There are plenty of contenders out there vying to become the project that proves theres a sustainable way to share rewards with players, but nobodys done it yet.
Play-to-earn has also fallen out of favor as a driver of growth. A Blockchain Games Alliance survey in 2021 found 67.9% of gaming professionals predicted play-to-earn would be a significant growth driver. A similar survey in January saw that number drop to just 22.5%.

Hot take Illuvium: Zero

In January, Illuvium rolled out the private alpha for Illuvium: Zero, a building sim based around collecting and processing natural resources on Illuvium land NFTs. The Aussie companys third game followed quickly on the heels of the December private beta release of Overworld.

Think SimCity BuildIt but more purple. 

Reviewing an alpha is arguably a grossly unfair thing to do. Alpha versions of games are still in their early days. Theyre supposed to have glitches and lack full gameplay. The fact that its almost as good as BuildIt (not to be confused with non-mobile versions of SimCity) says far more about BuildIt than it does about Illuvium.

Read More: Better than Axie Infinity: Kieran Warwicks 2032 plan for Illuvium

But it follows similar principles. Theres a select set of buildings you can add to your land, some of which require unlocking by building other buildings. You can then use these buildings to extract resources and store them. Im curious to see what these resources will ultimately be used for. 

Despite numbers being capped at 6,500 players, Illuvium says that the game has been the most popular of the three it has released, potentially due to its availability on mobile devices and the use of NFTs that players have already invested in.

Regarding future versions of Illuvium, the team has several plans to enhance graphics and gameplay, said co-founder Kieran Warwick.

Whats coming up

Gods Unchained mobile version Gods Unchained announced plans for a mobile version in February. Its currently rolling out the pre-alpha to active community members and requesting feedback. The test period will end on March 22.

Chain Monsters Looking a little bit Pokmon-esque, the early access version of Chain Monsters will hit the Epic Games Store on March 6. Also available on iOS and Android, players can explore the open world of Ancora, catching and battling monsters.

Illuvium: Beyond Illuviums fourth game will be a card-collecting game where players earn points based on how their cards are customized and by completing milestones within their collections. 

Otherside Second Trip Yuga Labs will launch a Second Trip to the Otherside at some point in late March, featuring updates to avatars and other new features. It will be followed by a second experience, Legends of the Mara, which will be a stand-alone 2D experience powered by Apecoin.

Got tips, questions or comments? Please direct all vitriol, abuse and declarations of love to me on Twitter @quinnishvili. 

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