Weekly Digest

October opens up with some high-octane news as Amazon shakes things up by offering free gaming NFTs to Prime members, Elon Musk ups the ante by testing out X as a potential game streaming disruptor, UAE gets ahead of the curve by embracing Web3 gaming for economic growth and diversification, and Yuga Labs drops the hammer and gets tough on platforms that don't support creator royalties. The top 10 leaders transforming the industry are revealed and we discuss what needs to be done for interoperable items to grow at scale across Web3 games. Are we at a turning point within Web3 gaming?

Also in our weekly digest:

• Top game companies embrace Web3 but less than 25% are building

• Gala links the big screen with gaming and ownable gaming assets

• NFTb's free gaming mint on SKALE carried it to 2nd spot on DappRadar in marketplaces

• Wemade and Chainlink partner for interoperable gaming

• Upland is active on EOS with over 20k active daily addresses

• Platforms need better games if there is to be a Web3 version of STEAM

• Pixion Games secures $5.5M and has big plans for Fableborne

• Epic Games lays off 800+ staff as the metaverse remains empty

The most comprehensive look at Gala Games!

Next research shedding light on the Web3 gaming progress and funding soon!

Web3 Gaming News 🎮

• 72% of top game companies have embraced Web3 but only 24% are actively developing

• Amazon is offering free gaming NFTs, including a new Mojo Melee champion NFT and non-NFT items in My Pet Hooligan

• Elon Musk recently tried out the "𝕏" video game streaming system

• Gala Games partners with award-winning film and rebrands its flagship game Town Star to incorporate elements from the film

• Legends of the Mara assets by Yuga Labs are blocked from trading on platforms that do not support creator royalties

• Binance backed NFTb completed it’s first gaming free mint on SKALE becoming a top NFT marketplace daily by users on Dappradar

• Battle of Kingdoms brings Web3 gaming to the masses allowing players to collect NFTs on Android, iOS, and Google Play PC

• Wemade the South Korean gaming giant partners with Chainlink to create the Unagi omnichain ecosystem 

• Blockchain Game Alliance (BGA) is calling industry professionals to share perspectives to feed into the 2023 State of the Industry Report

• Metacade, the world's first community-led gaming platform, announces a collaboration with Polygon Labs for 100 new games

• Animoca Brands Japan, partners with Drecom Corporation the Japanese gaming app to expand Japan's web3 gaming sector

• Legacy by Gala Games is set to be released on Oct-26, a Web3 Business strategy simulation game

• Shrapnel Studio Head Don Norbury discusses the game’s NFTs, team-based gameplay plans, and changes in game maps

• ESE Entertainment partnered with Poznan Game Arena and Metapro to organize the Web3 Game Arena, featuring W3GA HOT LAP

• UAE embraces Web3 gaming as a means of economic diversification and cultural enrichment, positioning itself as a global leader

• Gods Unchained has announced Season 2, Far Horizons the game promises new God powers, an expansion set, and new lands and lore

• StarGarden, is closing down due to funding issues. The team has laid off most staff and is working on finding funding

• Grease Monkey Games has unveiled its latest trailer for Torque Drift 2, the drifting game is set in a fictitious Japanese city

• Several games to look out for in October, including Gods Unchained Season Two, MegaWorld's Express Delivery, Sugartown's NFT sale, and My Pet Hooligan's early access

• Good Gaming Inc. has announced its first mobile game, Galactic Acres, in partnership with ViaOne Services

• Guild of Guardians is set to release a "Friends and Family Demo" from October 9th

• TTT, a Web3-powered PvP shooter game is making waves in the gaming landscape with the excitement of GTA-style adventures

• Mysten Labs has launched Play Beyond, a web3 gaming gateway for its Sui blockchain introducing live games

• Gyrowin is a cross-chain decentralized gaming platform that combines lottery games with security and transparency

• Snook, the online multiplayer version of Snake, is launching its Arbitrum-based version 

• Reign of Terror and Open Loot are offering a special Mystery Loot Crate giveaway, with 5,000 crates to be won

• Upland, a virtual property game, is the most popular EOS contract group by daily active users, with an average of 22,000 in Q2

• Synergy Land, a game that combines farming, base building, and dungeon crawling, is set to launch an early access in October

• Zynga has launched its inaugural web3 game, "Sugartown's NGMI event," limited to 400 players over a weekend. The game requires players to own and stake an "Ora" to generate energy, which determines playtime

Web3 Gaming Trends 🚀

• To establish the Steam of Web3, platforms should focus on providing a broad range of enjoyable games that cater to both Web3 and non-Web3 players' interests, ensuring transparency and security standards

• To enable interoperable items across games, and at scale, these are the hurdles that have to be addressed

The Dream of Interoperable Web3 Gaming

The concept of allowing players to use in-game items across multiple video games faces several key challenges. Lack of industry standards makes cross-game item usage difficult - developers use different coding languages and file formats for items, meaning an item from one game may not work in another. To enable interoperability, common data standards would need to be established.

In addition, business interests may pose a barrier, as developers and publishers want players to purchase items within their own games, rather than bring items from other games. Revenue-sharing models could help address this, where original item creators receive royalties when an item is used in another game.

Technical challenges also exist around balancing items across games and ensuring cross-game items do not cause gameplay problems. Developers collaborating and sharing best practices around cross-game item tools and APIs could help overcome the technical obstacles.

Legal and regulatory challenges around consumer protection and antitrust will need to be navigated. Overall, cross-game item usage faces challenges around lack of standards, business incentives, technical complexity, and legal compliance. With industry collaboration and revenue-sharing frameworks, the technical and business obstacles could potentially be solved, but standards and regulations would likely need to be established to enable interoperability and compliance.

Web3 Funding News 💸

• Pixion Games secured $5.5M funding to accelerate Fableborne development, including a tournament platform and LiveOps features

• NexGami secured $2M in seed funding, propelling it to a $20M valuation. The round, which included Polygon Ventures, Fundamental Labs, and Ledger Capital

• Qor Gaming, LLC has secured a major investment from TTI Gaming Holdings, LLC as the lead investor for their ongoing funding round

Exploring the Metaverse 🛸

• Epic Games has laid off around 830 staff due to unrealistic metaverse ambitions, resulting in a 16% reduction in the company's workforce

• Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has unveiled the company's photorealistic metaverse technologies, which encode and transmit real-time facial data from a headset via a special codec

• DJ Carl Cox is set to launch his own metaverse rave in a lava-filled venue, complete with AI dancers on Oct27

• Futurity Brands is partnering with UK web3 studio Reality+ to bring Paul Frank's iconic Julius the Monkey character into metaverse

Alpha Test, Early Access & Hands-On Gaming ⚒️

Zeedz public alpha launch, 5th October

New Mojo Melee season, Harvest of Doom, starts 6th October

Sugartown’s Oras Beta Charge event, 10th-13th October

Upcoming Free Gaming Mints ⚒️

Tales of Elleria, Now

Iota Heroes, Now

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^{"Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future”}
-Yoda

See you same place same time next week!

❤❤❤

Yoda Labs team