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Creators of Fortnite make programming language for the metaverse
$14M funding for web3 game, bright spots for web3 game devāt, more top stories this week
š® Metaproof Gaming
Hey frens, this is Sophia from š® Metaproof Gaming, the weekly newsletter where we update you on how the metaverse and web3 are changing the gaming industry.Ā
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š² By the numbers
A McKinsey survey on the metaverse sought to separate fact from fiction in this burgeoning space: (Source)
55% of survey respondents said they had heard of at least one metaverse platform, such as Roblox, Fortnite, or Decentraland.Ā
30% said they had used or played at least one metaverse game
Of early adopters, 75% defined the metaverse in fairly accurate terms: 47% described it with clarity using terms like āimmersive,ā āinteractive,ā or a āscaled networkā; 30% know of the metaverse as a virtual world; 19% have no clear understanding; and 4% associate the metaverse with the Meta/Facebook company
š« News & trends
Fortnite creator Epic Games seeks to master the complexity of the metaverse via a new programming language. Dubbed as āVerse,ā the programming language is said to be developed openly, with promises from the company to make all descriptions, specifications, and tools publicly available without restrictions.Ā
The new move underlines Epicās grand metaverse ambitions, with its CEO Tim Sweeney publicly expressing confidence in the metaverse concept and demonstrates strength through its successful proto-metaverse game Fortnite as well as the Unreal 3D engine as a foundational technology for a 3D future.Ā
Epic Games also got Sony on board as an investor and partner, with the Japanese firm pouring in a total of $1.25B in investment and highlighting Fortnite in particular as a social meeting spot going beyond the concept of gaming.Ā
Animoca Brands, a company pursuing digital property rights for gaming and the metaverse, has announced Mocaverse as its official PFP NFT collection strengthening its ecosystem of web3 and metaverse-focused projects. The Mocaverse collection is slated for release starting the first quarter of 2023, comprising 8,888 NFTs of characters called Mocas. It will feature four categories of utility - known as realms - to represent the core pillars of the collection: learn, play, build, and do good. These realms will act as channels for usersā idea exchange, knowledge transfer, and overall growth as a community.Ā
Augmented reality mobile game DOGAMĆ, which features NFT pet companions, has completed a $14 million seed funding round. With community members in over 80 countries, the web3 mobile gaming firm indicated selling 12,000 NFTs of dog avatars and 12,000 NFTs of canine accessories via a collaboration with omni-channel clothing retailer GAP. On the mobile app front, its "DOGA House" allows users to discover and interact with their āNFT puppiesā in the āDOGAMĆ universeā while they earn DOGA cryptocurrency. The company also raised $7M led by VC firm XAnge after initially securing $6M from industry leaders in January this year.Ā
Coming off from a $19M seed round in March, Metaverse Game Studios is pulling the trigger on using ImmutableX for its debut web3 MMORPG Angelic. The indie game studio, made up of industry veterans with history on games like League of Legends, says leveraging the developer platform lets its users tap into the benefits of āfast, secure, and gas-free mintingā along with an uninterrupted gaming experience. Metaverse Game Studios is primarily using its latest funding to fuel Angelicās growth and ensure a seamless experience for users.
Heads up, gamers and metaverse enthusiasts: cybercriminal are out to get you, your data, and money in 2023. Experts warn against stealing oneās personal and financial details - an old-fashioned scam - but with a newfound target in the form of new people and tech platforms. With the security of these new platforms still in infancy, untold amounts of data and money could be compromised. The metaverse may not be spared from these security growing pains, particularly with the mix of entertainment and business applications emerging in this brave new world.Ā
Web3 gaming is on a roll, with 3 out of 4 respondents in a survey expecting to work on web3 projects in the future. Commissioned by blockchain entertainment firm Coda Labs, the survey targeted game developers and asked about their thoughts on web3. Over half of the respondents, too, believe that web3 will affect user acquisition and retention, while 40% anticipate its implementation to usher in more new users. Developers are also keen on web3 bringing new revenue streams, with 47% of participants highlighting NFT sales as a web3 benefit and 43% considering crypto tokens an additional revenue source.Ā
Alex Connolly, CTO of ImmutableX and passionate about in-game assets since forever (at 9, he wrote scripts to gather pricing data from the Runescape grand exchange), sits down with Crypto News to talk about onboarding the next million gamers to web3 and how Immutable X is powering digital asset ownership. On the podcast, he also delves on web3 games and the prominence of streaming, along with the future of gaming economies and peer-to-peer networks.Ā
Epic Games is told to pay $520M in FTC settlements due to allegations of failing to protect childrenās privacy in the game as well as for deceptive practices regarding in-game purchases. The amount includes a $275M penalty to be paid to the agency for violating the Childrenās Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), while another $245M will serve as refund for affected users in what the FTC calls ādark patterns and billing practices.ā Epic Games is valued at $31.5B currently; while Fortnite isnāt considered a metaverse game, the company is increasingly positioning itself as a key metaverse builder, including major work toward a kid-friendly, official LEGO-themed metaverse game world.Ā
Global video game publisher Nexon has paired up with Tencent Cloud to launch its mobile app NEXONTOWN, a metaverse platform housing open halls, camping sites, classrooms, and conference halls. Here users can interact with each other using items and characters from Nexonās online games and, powered by Tencent Real-Time Communications (TRTC), the platform allows them to communicate via real-time chatting, with a game items trading feature coming up shortly. Tencent Cloud also provides a range of metaverse-related services for businesses, including virtual simulation, virtual cities and campuses; real-time cloud rendering and digital twins; and digital humans and avatars.
Play-to-earn (P2E) games are all the rage today in web3 and crypto gaming, working through the integration of blockchain technologies to enable players to earn money from the games they play. See how esports has been adopted into web3 spaces along with prospects for growth, including the potential integration of gameplay and skill into more upscale titles and the increasing acceptance of the āwin-to-earnā model in the future.Ā
2023 will see developers shifting their focus away from building out infrastructure offerings and instead turning to the application layer, notes Tony Cheng of Foresight Ventures. Blockchain offers users an upper hand in gaming, especially when it comes to ownership, yet thereās enough opportunity for developers to craft apps that enhance game performance. Amid market gaps in web2 and web3 gaming, decentralized gaming apps come to the fore, along with massive potential for gamification across industries utilizing the incentive models native to web3.Ā
Billions of dollars have been invested in developing the internetās immersive version - yet are the signs pointing to actual success? Trends in the nascent metaverse gaming world, according to Decrypt, point to a similar trend: web3 games like Axie Infinity skyrocketed to fame in 2021, fueled by a P2E model. After generating billions of dollars in NFT trading volume, the platformās token soon after crashed and called the model into question. While gaming and web3 remain promising bedfellows, thereās room to leverage web3 tools further to advance the games.Ā
Soulbound tokens, named after the video game World of Warcraft (WoW), may be on the cusp of revolutionizing the gaming industry and may be key to removing āpeskyā pay-to-win schemes for good. Soulbound tokens are NFTs but are considered not like any other: they are bound to the wallet that first receives or mints them. They are unique and non-transferable, which means they cannot be moved to and from the wallet they are initially bound to. Learn more about SBTs as a non-transferable utility, their gaming identity, reward distribution, plus privacy details holders are likely keen to know.
šø Finance buzz
š£ļø Quote of the week
āGamers despise the prioritization of monetization over gameplay. Nearly every in-market Web3 āgameā during this last bull market was primarily a financial application ā and gamers sniffed that out immediately ā¦ Web3 gaming isnāt conceptually misaligned with what gamers want but before gamers will even begin to consider the upsides, gameplay must be prioritized above all else.āĀ
All content on this newsletter is for informational purposes only and does not aim to serve as or replace expert investment advice.
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