Elon Musk streams, Amazon partners with Immutable, MetalCore preview: Web3 Gamer
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.
Read also
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.
Subscribe
The most engaging reads in blockchain. Delivered once a
week.
Politics
Reform deputy attacks govt for ‘protecting rights’ of illegal migrants – and fires back at Archbishop of York
Reform UK has hit back at both the Archbishop of York and the government following criticism of its immigration policies.
Leader Nigel Farage announced the party’s flagship immigration plan during a flashy news conference held at an aircraft hangar in Oxford on Tuesday.
The party pledged to deport anybody who comes to the UK illegally, regardless of whether they might come to harm, and said it would pay countries with questionable human rights records – such as Afghanistan – to take people back.
Politics latest – follow live updates
It also said it would leave numerous international agreements, and revoke the Human Rights Act, in order to do this.
The policy was criticised by the Conservatives, who said Mr Farage was “copying our homework”, while parties such as the Liberal Democrats and the Greens condemned it.
Archbishop Stephen Cottrell and Richard Tice MP. Pics: PA
But the plan came under fire from an altogether different angle on Saturday, when the Archbishop of York accused it of being an “isolationist, short-term kneejerk” approach, with no “long-term solutions”.
Stephen Cottrell, who is the acting head of the Church of England, told Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips that he had “every sympathy” with those who find the issue of immigration tricky. But he said Reform UK’s plan does “nothing to address the issue of what brings people to this country”, and would in fact, make “the problem worse”.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
In full: Richard Tice on Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips
Speaking on the same programme, Richard Tice, Reform’s deputy leader, responded to the archbishop’s criticisms, saying that “all of it is wrong”.
The MP for Boston and Skegness said he was a Christian who “enjoys” the church – but that the “role of the archbishop is not actually to interfere with international migration policies”.
Mr Tice then turned his fire on the government, accusing ministers of being “more interested in protecting the rights of people who’ve come here illegally… than looking after the rights of British citizens”.
He accused ministers of having “abandoned” their duty of “looking after the interests of British citizens”.
Mr Tice reaffirmed his party’s policy that the UK should leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), calling it a “70-year-old, out-of-date, unfit-for-purpose agreement”.
The Reform UK deputy leader also:
• Defended plans to pay the Taliban to take migrants back, comparing it to doing business deals with “people you don’t like”
• Said the Royal Navy should be deployed in the English Channel as a “deterrent”, but added: “We’re not saying sink the boats”
• Urged the government to call an early general election
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Farage ‘wants to provoke anger’
Meanwhile, Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, told Sky News that Reform “want to provoke anger, but they don’t actually want to solve the problems that we face in front of us”.
She told Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips the UK had a “proud tradition [of] supporting those facing persecution”.
But she added: “We will make sure that people who have no right to be in this country are removed from this country. That’s right. It’s what people expect. It’s what this government will deliver.”
Ms Phillipson also insisted there “needs to be reform of the ECHR” and said the home secretary is “looking at the article eight provisions”, which cover the right to a private and family life, to see “whether they need updating and reforming for the modern age”.
👉 Listen to Sky News Daily on your podcast app 👈
However, she refused to say what the government would do if it is found that the ECHR is unreformable. Instead, she defended Labour’s position of staying in the governance of the convention, saying that honouring the “rule of law” is important.
She added: “Our standing in the world matters if we want to strike trade deals with countries. We need to be a country that’s taken seriously. We need to be a country that honours our obligations and honours the rule of law.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Asylum seekers to remain at Bell Hotel
Ms Phillipson was also drawn on the recent court ruling in favour of the Home Office, which overturned an injunction banning The Bell Hotel in Epping from housing asylum seekers.
Challenged on whether the government is prioritising the rights of asylum seekers over British citizens, she said it “is about a balance of rights”.
The cabinet minister also repeated the government’s plans to end the use of hotels to house asylum seekers by 2029.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
‘We should have overruled law’
Shadow Cabinet Office minister Alex Burghart said the Conservatives would be willing to leave the ECHR – if this route is recommended to them.
The Tories have asked a senior judge to look into the “legal intricacies” of leaving the convention, which he said is “not straightforward”. He said when the party receives that report, it will then make a decision.
Challenged on whether the Tories will leave if that is what the report recommends, he added: “If that’s what’s necessary, we will do it.”
Mr Burghart also said he believed the previous Conservative government’s biggest mistake was that “we did not go far enough on overruling human rights legislation”, which prevented it from “taking the tough action that was absolutely necessary”.
But he added the Conservatives have now “put forward very clear legislation that would solve this problem” – though he concluded Labour “isn’t going to do it” so the problem “is going to get worse”.
Politics
Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell tells Nigel Farage ‘kneejerk’ migrant deportation plan won’t solve problem
The Archbishop of York has told Sky News the UK should resist Reform’s “kneejerk” plan for the mass deportation of migrants, telling Nigel Farage he is not offering any “long-term solution”.
Stephen Cottrell said in an interview with Trevor Phillips he has “every sympathy” with people who are concerned about asylum seekers coming to the country illegally.
But he criticised the plan announced by Reform on Tuesday to deport 600,000 people, which would be enabled by striking deals with the Taliban and Iran, saying it will not “solve the problem”.
Mr Cottrell is currently acting head of the Church of England while a new Archbishop of Canterbury is chosen.
Pic: Jacob King/PA Wire
The Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell in 2020.
File pic: PA
Phillips asked him: “What’s your response to the people who are saying the policy should be ‘you land here, unlawfully, you get locked up and you get deported straight away. No ifs, no buts’?”
Mr Cottrell said he would tell them “you haven’t solved the problem”, adding: “You’ve just put it somewhere else and you’ve done nothing to address the issue of what brings people to this country.
“And so if you think that’s the answer, you will discover in due course that all you have done is made the problem worse.
“Don’t misunderstand me, I have every sympathy with those who find this difficult, every sympathy – as I do with those living in poverty.
“But… we should actively resist the kind of isolationist, short term kneejerk ‘send them home’.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
What do public make of Reform’s plans?
Nigel Farage at the launch of Reform UK’s plan to deport asylum seekers. Pic: PA
Asked if that was his message to the Reform leader, he said: “Well, it is. I mean, Mr Farage is saying the things he’s saying, but he is not offering any long-term solution to the big issues which are convulsing our world, which lead to this. And, I see no other way.”
You can watch the full interview on Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips on Sky News from 8.30am
Mr Farage, the MP for Clacton, was asked at a news conference this week what he would say if Christian leaders opposed his plan.
“Whoever the Christian leaders are at any given point in time, I think over the last decades, quite a few of them have been rather out of touch, perhaps with their own flock,” he said.
“We believe that what we’re offering is right and proper, and we believe for a political party that was founded around the slogan of family, community, country that we are doing right by all of those things, with these plans we put forward today.”
Sky News has approached Mr Farage for comment.
Crypto transactions are vulnerable to warrant-free surveillance, making privacy-enhancing tools essential for blockchain’s future.
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Sports2 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment11 months agoHere are the best electric bikes you can buy at every price level in October 2024