30 August 2024 | Weekly news roundup

Jon Jordan and BlockchainGamer.biz editor Jenny Jordan discuss all the news from 2024. [2:16] The success of Pixels was an ongoing trend in 2024; but it wasn't always about DAUWs. [2:35] Heroes of Mavia was the first big game and token launch of 2024 but it didn't scale. [4:10] In 2024, we saw a lot of blockchain games launching through app stores but no big hits. [6:10] Browser vs app stores and PC gaming stores remains a key business decision. [8:44] A lot of meme-y game coins such as MON, PORTAL, CARV, XAI launched in Q1. [11:30] There was a lot of news about chain migration - so many new L2 and L3 chains. [13:00] In Q2, there was a big change in sentiment with game token prices tanking. [14:11] The rise of KOLs, who encouraged retail crypto to invest in new tokens with often bad results. [16:05] The rise of Telegram and TON as a strong marketing channel for blockchain games. [17:46] Another nascent year for Immutable: Guild of Guardians was not a success. [22:17] But in Immutable's defence... 4 million Immutable Passport wallet sign-ups. [28:28] In Q3, the issue of bots became a problem esp. in respect to airdrops and token rewards. [30:09] What are you trying to do with your blockchain game when it comes to giving out value? [32:04] Does it matter if bots or AI agents are paying $10 to play your game? [32:30] The other thing in Q3 was the start of successful games on Ronin - Wild Forest, Lumiterra etc. [34:56] Pretty much every game launched on Ronin has got +100,000 DAUWs in testing. [37:19] Should we view console game Off The Grid as a success? [44:22] Whatever happened to The Sandbox? [45:25] CCP Game's EVE Frontier is now in closed alpha testing. [46:59] What's significant is these projects are very serious about the value of blockchain in games. [49:45] More generally, the US presidential election was the clear pivot point for crypto in 2024. [52:51] Investment into the sector was down on 2023 but around $1 billion.

Jon Jordan and BlockchainGamer.biz editor Jenny Jordan discuss the news for the week ending 20th December 2024. [0:31] Pudgy Penguins launches its PENGU token, with a strong community airdrop. [3:22] The launch was very generous with Pudgy NFT holders getting $85,000 of PENGU. [5:34] Surprisingly given the Abstract blockchain is launching, there wasn't a claim+stake option. [11:00] Xterio has announced its AI agent vision for 2025 including Befriend AI chat-to-airdrop. [15:32] Is it a pivot? Maybe but a pivot can be a positive change for a project. [16:35] More generally, the Virtuals AI agent platform is doing very well. [18:28] Planet Mojo has announced its Agents of Poker AI agent game. [19:53] Faraway has announced the first AI agent to be a node validator - J3FF. [26:32] Is the endgame that our AI agents communicate and trade value on their own blockchains? [28:05] Big Time Studios' Open Loot platform has announced a $150 million fund. [33:03] Fableborne's had a successful third test with 149,000 players spending $540,000.

Jon Jordan and BlockchainGamer.biz editor Jenny Jordan discuss the news for the week ending 13th December 2024. [0:21] Ronin-based Apeiron is now live via app stores in southeast Asia. [0:50] But what's gone live is the dungeon battler gameplay. The god game meta is still in dev. [4:08] Ubisoft's Captain Laserhawk is going live on 18th December. [5:12] Jon is more excited about it than previous Ubi game Champions Tactics, which was hardcore. [7:18] Crypto Unicorns' dev Laguna Games announces fully onchain game Neo Olympus. [12:26] Fully onchain game Soccerverse is launching on 9th January 2025. [15:31] Treasure has launched its L2 on ZKsync. [20:13] Hytopia has ditched its Minecraft client and is now independent of all legacy code. [22:47] Beam Ventures have announced a $150 million fund based in Abu Dhabi.

Jon Jordan and BlockchainGamer.biz editor Jenny Jordan talk through the news for the week ending 6th December 2024, including: [0:32] EVE Frontier enters closed alpha on 10th December. [2:51] EVE Frontier is the attempt to build an EVE-style game in a composable blockchain sandbox. [5:55] How will a community grow up in EVE Frontier? [8:19] What does the original EVE Online community think about EVE Frontier? [12:43] Pudgy Penguins announces its PENGU token, what's the background? [19:40] NFL Rivals has surpassed $10 million in lifetime NFT trading volume. [24:15] This is also part of Mythical's attempt to build out a multi-game marketplace for NFTs. [25:43] Sky Mavis has announced free Axie NFTs via its new 30-day adoption program. [30:04] Pixels has announced its second Guild Wars event, which is backed by $4 million of PIXEL. [32:42] Rough House Games is merging with Overworld to form Reach Labs.

Jon Jordan and BlockchainGamer.biz editor Jenny Jordan talk through the news for the week ending 22nd November 2024, including: [2:05] Limit Break is rolling out its protocol to protect NFT creators royalties to all EVM chains. [3:45] Adding features such as minimum/maximum NFT prices may be controversial. [8:00] But you can also see how this might be good for some assets. [10:09] India-based guild KGeN has raised $10 million taking total funding to $30 million. [14:23] YGG has announced its Onchain Guilds protocol, launching on the Base blockchain. [17:38] And, more generally, the Base blockchain is picking up more gaming projects. [18:52] Parallel announces its Primechain which will be built on the B3 chain. [21:17] Nine Chronicles M has been live for a year: MAUs are up 113%, token price down 68% [25:46] Age of Dino is growing -- apparently without bots, just UA for web2 players !! [28:08] Two new guardians released in Guild of Guardians. [31:48] Open Loot's OL and Super Champs' CHAMP tokens launched this week. [34:42] Fableborne has launched its Season 3 and is talking about its POWER token.

Jon Jordan and BlockchainGamer.biz editor Jenny Jordan talk through the news for the week ending 15th November 2024, including: [0:31] It's been a year since Pixels went live on Ronin - one of 2024's success stories. [2:10] Why so many games have moved from Polygon. [3:10] Reasons to study Pixels' success. [4:27] Pirate Nation has launched its Season 3 rewards program. [12:16] Off The Grid has launched a competition giving out $3,000 per day. [17:03] Fableborne has moved from Avalanche to Ronin. [21:45] Game7 has already published its 2024 Web3 Gaming report. [32:10] Team Liquid has launched its fan rewards platform MyBlue on the Sui blockchain.

Jon Jordan and BlockchainGamer.biz editor Jenny Jordan talk through the news for the week ending 8th November 2024, including: [7:12] Delabs has announced it will be launching Ragnarok and Boxing Star on Telegram in 2025. [14:40] Nine Chronicles M has been out for almost a year and has seen good growth. [21:30] Hunters On-Chain is giving away $1M of BOOM via its Season 2 through Game7. [26:51] Immutable has integrated its Passport wallet with Telegram. [29:34] Off The Grid is now the most popular blockchain game in terms of daily activity. [36:19] Why Pixels' focus now less on headline user numbers and more on generating revenue. [40:53] Why Wild Forest is one to watch.

Jon Jordan talks to Gunzilla Games' director of web3 Theodore Arganat and Ava Labs head of gaming marketing Andrew 'Coop' Cooper about the launch of Off The Grid, the first blockchain-enable console game. [4:49] Early reaction to Off The Grid's launch. [6:19] It's been interesting you haven't focused much on the crypto aspects of the game... [6:43] "For us, it's about using the best technologies to create the best UX." [10:40] The strategy behind the launch marketing campaign with streamers like Ninja and Shroud. [12:59] Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 launch hasn't impacted Off The Grid activity - 3 million tx/day. [14:02] Currently only 20% of Off The Grid's full game has been released. [15:55] Everyone who plays Off The Grid gets a wallet seemlessly created for them in the background. [19:14] What's the roadmap for the campaign mode? [20:44] The background lore of the game from Richard Morgan and Neil Blomkamp. [22:38] What's Avalanche9000? [27:17] Why did Gunzilla choose Avalanche and what are its plans for the Gunz blockchain? [29:47] What's the roadmap for the Gunz blockchain to launch its mainnet? ends

Jon Jordan and BlockchainGamer.biz editor Jenny Jordan talk through the news for the week ending 1st November 2024, including: [0:35] Pudgy Party mobile social game is announced for 2025. [4:03] Blankos NFTs are now live for trading on Polkadot via the Mythical Market. [6:35] Blankos as an example of how blockchain assets can encourage project longevity. [10:16] Mythical Games is also launching various MYTH airdrops, including for Blankos holders [12:06] Immutable has received a Wells notice from the SEC. [13:43] This makes Immutable and the SEC feel important, albeit for opposing reasons. [18:02] Shodown Samurai R is the latest game announced for the Sui blockchain. [20:10] The Sandbox's Alpha 4 event is going well with over 276,000 players. [23:39] Delabs is pivoting to developing midcore games for Telegram and TON. [25:59] Why are so many blockchain games companies adopting Telegram?

In episode 184, Jon Jordan talks to TonTon Games' CEO Daniil Shcherbakov about the opportunity Telegram creates for successfully launching blockchain games. [2:40] Daniil's career to-date as an startup entrepreneur. [5:42] The opportunity for Telegram gaming is similar to that arising from app stores in 2008. [8:15] How can Telegram games expand beyond the current simple clicker experiences? [11:09] How TonTon's DRFT Party will leverage its forthcoming NFT collection. [13:27] We will not push all our games to have a token. You don't need tokens for the sake of it. [17:37] How important is Telegram's Star payment system for generating revenue? [22:05] How is TonTon's operating as a publisher of games in terms of selecting games? [25:54] Why it's looking for genres such as tower defense and mafia wars. [28:15] Are there particular countries with strong audiences for these games? [30:06] What's the UA situation like on Telegram for marketing games? [35:04] What's the plan for TonTon Games in the remainder of 2024? [37:12] What sort of retention metrics can Telegram games generate?