Square Enix, the Japanese game developer behind the beloved Final Fantasy franchise has signed on as a node validator for blockchain gaming project Oasys, with the duo also teaming up to create blockchain games. The move has predictably been met with criticism from some crypto and NFT hating members of the gaming community, irritated that the firm is continuing to double down its focus on blockchain tech. In a Sept. 12 announcement, Oasys revealed that Square Enix had jumped on board to be the project’s 21st node validator, taking up the final slot of initial validators. Moving forward the duo will also team up to develop new games on Oasys’ EVM compatible Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchain, which hopes to become a hub for Triple A quality games with Play-to-Earn (P2E) integrations. Square En...
Yves Guillemot, the CEO of French gaming giant Ubisoft appears to have cooled the rhetoric behind the company’s NFT gaming project Quartz, noting in a recent interview that it was merely in “research mode” concerning Web3 tech integrations. It’s a relatively different take from other Ubisoft execs in the past, including chief financial officer Frédérick Duguet who in October stated that blockchain integrations will enable users to own and earn content and the firm wants to “be one of the key players here.” During a Sept. 10 interview with gamesindustry.biz, Guillemot appears to be walking some of those comments back, emphasizing that at this stage, Ubisoft is primarily looking to discover how NFTs can be applied to games and whether they will benefit gamers or not. “We are very much ...
Yat Siu, the co-founder of crypto/NFT venture fund giant Animoca Brands, labeled the recent Minecraft NFT ban as “hypocritical” and emphasized that nonfungible tokens (NFT) can be inclusive, despite arguments to the contrary. As previously reported, Minecraft developers Mojang Studios announced a ban on all NFT integrations in the game on July 20. The firm stated that NFTs were against its values, as they foster price speculation, scarcity, exclusion and potential rug pulls. Speaking with Cointelegraph, Siu expressed his frustration at Mojang Studios given the context in which NFTs were being integrated with Minecraft before the ban. Projects such as NFT Worlds were utilizing Minecraft’s open source servers to host a metaverse platform that had crypto and NFT ecosystems built around it. Th...
Japanese gaming giant Sega is looking at integrating cloud technology and NFTs as part of its new “Super Game” project to connect different games to each other. The news has caused a predictable backlash from the crypto-skeptic section of the gaming community, with many people voicing their frustrations at the firm online this week. The Super Game initiative is set to roll out over the next five years and will reportedly see the development of a wide range of new cross-platform triple A grade games. The firm is said to be weighing up an investment of around $800 million into the project. The suggestion of potential NFT and cloud support was made during an interview on Sega Japan’s recruitment website. Gaming news outlet Video Games Chronicle provided a translation for English speakers earl...
San Francisco-based game developer Zynga, best known for the FarmVille and CSR Racing series, has announced plans to release its first blockchain and NFT-based games this year. The billion-dollar game studio first made waves in the crypto world last year after appointing 30-year gaming industry veteran Matt Wolf as Vice President of Blockchain Gaming to lead the company’s charge into the burgeoning industry. Zynga has also announced plans to increase the current blockchain gaming team from 15 employees to anywhere up to 100 by the end of this year. The company may also soon fall under the umbrella of video-game colossus Take-Two Interactive, publisher of Grand Theft Auto which publicly announced a $12.7 billion dollar acquisition move set to close in the first quarter of 2023. Speaking on ...
Twitch co-founder Justin Kan launched a new blockchain gaming-focused nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace on Thursday dubbed Fractal. Fractal’s Discord group has since amassed more than 111,000 members despite only being announced two weeks ago. At the time of writing, it appears that the most significant sale on the platform so far was for a “Baby Scoot” NFT that went for 4 Solana (SOL) worth roughly $680. The Solana-based marketplace enables users to buy, trade and hold NFTs used in blockchain games. In an announcement made on Thursday, the firm unveiled its first partnered blockchain games, including The Sandbox, Nyan Heroes, Caveworld and Genopets, to name a few. first of all: we are live https://t.co/y2yO4R7Ty2 — fractal ❄️ (@fractalwagmi) December 30, 2021 As part of th...