Značka: Play-to-earn

Bandai Namco, SEGA among gaming giants eyeing blockchain gaming

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. Related: Japanese gov’t issues NFTs to reward local authorities’ workThis 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.

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South Korean ministry recommends enactment of special Metaverse laws

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.Related: South Korea issues arrest warrant for Terra Founder Do KwonWhile 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.

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Animoca Brands continues shopping spree with MotoGP mobile dev acquisition

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.Related: Gamers want fun, not a grind fest for tokens — Animoca subsidiaryAccording 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. 

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Gamers want fun, not a grind fest for tokens — Animoca subsidiary

Blockchain-based games need to spend more time actually being “fun to play” rather than developing flashy tokenomics, an Animoca Brand-owned blockchain game developer told Cointelegraph.Speaking to Cointelegraph on the first day of the 2022 Tokyo Games Show, Luke Sillay, the lead community manager at Australia-based game developer Blowfish Studios said that far too many blockchain games have put the focus on in-game rewards and tokenomics rather than gameplay. “You can see from a lot of other blockchain games that they’re not actually fun to play. Like, yes, you have potential to earn quite a significant amount of token and you get a good return on investment most of the time. But generally speaking, they’re not that fun, right?”Sillay said that generally, many of these games have simplistic game modes that are built around earning, rather than pure enjoyment, and have therefore failed to grasp the attention of traditional gamers thus far.According to data from DappRadar, the most popular blockchain games in terms of active users over the past 30 days are Gameta, Alien Worlds, and Solitaire Blitz with one million, 814,000, and 652,760 users, respectively. The figures show significant interest in the games but pale in comparison to popular traditional games. Sillay said games should primarily be “fun to play” and attractive to look at, stating: “Our kind of thought is that if it’s fun to play and it’s attractive to look at, people want to play it.”Blowfish Studios is an Australian video game developer that was acquired by Animoca Brands for around $6.6 million in July 2021. As part of the acquisition, Animoca has guided Blowfish from Web2 to Web3 gaming, with NFT game Phantom Galaxies (currently in Beta) being the company’s main focus. 2022 Tokyo Games Show Questioned on the type of games that would work best with NFTs and P2E integration, Sillay highlighted free-to-play giants such as Riot’s League of Legends and Epic Games’ Fortnite which already have internal markets built into them. He noted that these types of games generally attract die-hard fans because they are fun to play, and continually update and improve the experience over time. This leads to people who play for multiple years and happily spend money to purchase products such as new character skins. “Say like League of Legends and Fortnite with your skins and stuff like that […] If you can play and enjoy something for a really long time, you know, and then you drop it, in a year or two in, you don’t really have much to show for it. But if you do that with blockchain, you can potentially sell all the assets you’ve earned,” he said. Sillay went on to note that there are some barriers to entry in blockchain games that may be putting some people off, and that if the onboarding process can be ironed out this could attract new users. “It’s a very daunting thing trying to learn about this whole new technology, creating a wallet etc, and there are so many words in blockchains that mean completely different things,” he said. Sega Booth: Tokyo Games ShowPhantom Galaxies is an open-world mecha-robot shooter game expected to have an official early access launch in Q4 2022. Its in-game NFTs have already seen a high level of demand, with more than 517,000 owners of its Origin Collection according to OpenSea. The project also concluded a private NFT sale in May that fetched an estimated $19.3 million. Related: Animoca confirms $110M round led by Temasek, plans new acquisitionsAt this stage, Phantom Galaxies requires just one NFT to get started, making it a relatively straightforward process to get involved. “Then the rest is actually at the moment just like a traditional game basically,” Sillay said.

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GameFi investors are now prioritizing fun factor over money: Survey

GameFi, the fusion of gaming and decentralized finance (DeFi), attracts a set of investors that tend to choose projects based on their use case rather than money-generating potential.The GameFi ecosystem attracts GenZ investors and gaming enthusiasts. As a result, it stands as an entry point for numerous first-time investors. A ChainPlay survey participated by 2428 GameFi investors revealed that 75% of the respondents joined the crypto space solely because of GameFi.3 in 4 respondents joined cryptocurrency because of GameFi. Source: ChainPlayWhile roughly half of the investors joined the GameFi space initially for profits, 89% of GameFi investors succumbed to Crypto Winter 2022 — with 62% of them losing more than 50% of their profits. GameFi profits are decreasing. Source: ChainPlayHowever, investors believe that poor in-game economy design was the main reason for their losses. In accordance with this sentiment, the survey revealed that, in 2022, investors worldwide spent an average of 2.5 hours per day participating in GameFi, which is down 43% to 4.4 hours from last year.The fear of rug pulls and Ponzi schemes coupled with sub-par graphics are some of the biggest drivers preventing investments in new GameFi projects. As a result, 44% of investors believe that the involvement of traditional gaming companies can be key to GameFi’s growth.Moreover, when it comes to future GameFi projects, 81% of GameFi investors are moving away from the traditional mindset and prioritizing the fun factor over profit-making as they seek positive in-game experiences.Related: GameFi and crypto ‘natural fit’ for game publishers: KBW 2022Blockchain gaming and the Metaverse were the least affected ecosystems by the Terra (LUNA) debacle, confirmed a DappRadar report.In addition, a sustained institutional investment was seen in both blockchain gaming and the Metaverse, highlighting that many top companies see the potential for strong economic growth in both sectors moving forward.

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