Elon Musk is a streamer?
The social media website X, formerly known as Twitter, hosted its first gaming stream — a 50-minute-long Diablo 4 gameplay — on October 6. The stream, which has over 42 million views at the time of writing, involved X owner Elon Musk playing Blizzard Entertainment’s latest title and answering questions from viewers.
The stream happened as a test of X’s new streaming feature, as Musk wanted to see if the audio sounded normal, if the image looked reasonably good and whether the comments were working. The result was a success, with the stream concluding without any interceptions or distortions.
Musk’s desire to make X a super app is no secret, and this move is just another brick in the wall of features the “everything app” aspires to offer. Musk commented on X’s place among other streaming apps like Kick and Twitch:
“I think the very specialist apps are still gonna be probably better than us in a lot of ways, but you know, I think we can be the best generalist app. There’s some value to being a generalist app for, I guess, discovery and for interacting with the largest number of people in the world.”
He continued to answer viewer questions toward the end of the stream without speaking a word about crypto and announced the streaming feature for Xbox and PS5.
NFTs have gone through quite a journey, from funky ape images on the blockchain to the next step in the evolution of art. While it’s hard to call it a thriving market since early 2022, the NFT ecosystem is on a continuous rollercoaster as new use cases emerge and older ones become no longer feasible.
A DappRadar report shows that the daily active wallets for the NFT sector grabbed quite a bite from gaming in the third quarter, doubling its activity while jumping to 12% of the total blockchain ecosystem from a mere 7% in Q2 2023.
Aside from being cool images or pixelated art, NFTs might have shown potential as an onboarding tool for Web3 communities. Cronos Labs, a Web3 startup accelerator backed by crypto exchange Crypto.com, is no stranger to NFTs and Web3 gaming thanks to the NFT collections released by Crypto.com in partnership with global brands.
Cronos Labs head of ecosystem Ella Qiang tells Magazine that it’s notoriously difficult to bootstrap a community from scratch in blockchain gaming. However, having an NFT collection means you also have an engaging community of NFT holders — making a great start to building a community for a game.
“This is why some of the successful games on Cronos launched an NFT collection and built their community from there.”
Qiang says that crypto gaming has two main routes: “First one is the Web3 route, starting with the NFT collection to build an engaging community. Then the community becomes passionate about the collection and wants to see more utility for those NFTs.”
The second route involves established Web2 IPs and their established user base. At some point, the studio might want to add some Web3 elements to their IP. Cronos Labs is helping a number of mobile game studios to incorporate Web3 components into traditional games.
“It’s quite challenging for them. It’s not like chucking NFTs into an established title or creating a token inside the game — it’s way more complicated than that.”
The reaction of Web2 gamers might not be what the studio expects in such cases. They might not like the idea of having NFTs or tokens in a game they like, according to Qiang.
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Presentation also plays a key role in the acceptance rate of the community. Zynga, one of the most established mobile gaming publishers, recently announced its Web3 gaming platform and transmedia IP, Sugartown, with a new NFT collection. Even though traditional gamers make up the majority of Zynga’s user base, Zynga’s “Sugartown Oras” quickly became the hottest NFT collection on NFT marketplace OpenSea.
Amazon partners with Web3 gaming company
Immutable, a Web3 gaming platform, announced its partnership with industry giant Amazon Web Services to expand opportunities for game developers. AWS added Immutable to its Independent Software Vendors (ISV) Accelerate Program, where companies offer software solutions that either run on or integrate with AWS.
The agreement allows Immutable to offer game studios training, technical support and AWS cloud credits up to $100,000 to cover cloud service costs via AWS Activate.
AWS Australia and New Zealand head of startups John Kearney commented on AWS’s impact on Immutable’s development:
“AWS is supercharging Immutable’s development by onboarding new game studios and providing them with resources through our flagship AWS Activate startup program and AWS’s ISV Accelerate Program, which give them the tools to accelerate their global launch.”
Immutable is no stranger to Amazon as the platform is built with Amazon EventBridge and AWS Lambda, serverless services allowing Immutable to use events to connect application components and rapidly scale.
Immutable product marketing lead Michael Powell addressed the concerns of blockchain purists, stating that games are built on centralized platforms and that striking a balance between decentralization and practical game development is vital.
The upcoming free-to-play massively multiplayer online action game lets players experience a chaotic battlefield with gameplay similar to the signature style of Star Wars: Battlefront and Battlefield games. Combining infantry combat with vehicular combat, MetalCore boasts an impressive line-up of towering mechs, armored tanks and high-flying jets for players to command freely.
MetalCore has eight classes with different attributes and expertise: light infantry, heavy infantry, super heavy infantry, engineer, medic, scout, sniper and pilot. Players can switch between first-person and third-person and participate in player-versus-player and player-versus-environment game modes.
The graphics are mesmerizing and look AAA quality, and there’s good reason for that. The team behind MetalCore comprises industry veterans with prior experience in AAA games, including Fortnite, The Walking Dead, Gears of War 3 and Mortal Kombat. The game also features design and illustrations from people who worked on famous Hollywood franchises like Avengers, Star Wars and Star Trek.
Two studios, Studio 369 and Umbrella Network, are working on the game. Studio 369 handles most of the actual game-making on Unreal Engine, while Umbrella Network brings Web3 experience in blockchain development and data management.
MetalCore’s in-game token, FAB, is freely convertible and tradable on exchanges and allows players to buy and customize vehicles such as aircraft, gunships, fighter jets and bombers. Players can battle in these vehicles or choose to gift, trade or rent them.
Everything is represented as an NFT in MetalCore, from land and garages to exclusive equipment, war machines, pilots and in-game currencies. Utilizing NFTs allows players to truly own their assets. Rare weapons, cosmetic items and skins are also acquirable as NFTs that are tradable on an open marketplace.
The mechanized combat game is steadily assembling partnerships with solid companies, including Ethereum-based Web3 gaming platform Immutable and the gaming community’s second-favorite digital game distributor, Epic Games.
MetalCore looks quality, and this is precisely what Web3 gaming needs. If it delivers on its promises, we might finally get a good, fun product in Web3 gaming.
More from Web3 gaming space
– Animoca Brands partners with Drecom to support the expansion of Japanese Web3 gaming.
– Twitch streamer Dr Disrespect shares a new trailer of Web3 extraction shooter Deadrop, developed by his game studio Midnight Society.
– Bored Ape creator Yuga Labs invests in Hadean, a spatial computing company, to power BAYC-themed metaverse, Otherside.
– The Sandbox announces a partnership with T&B Media Global, a Thailand-based IP development company, to launch new virtual experiences.
– Aavegotchis are coming to The Sandbox on October 25.
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