Play-to-Earn is Dead, Stardust tech enables Blockchain-Free Interactions for Players & Worldwide Webb Drops Updated Game Version
Play-to-Earn is Dead: Gaming NFTs take a Hit in H1 2022
During the last run of the NFT bull market back in April-May, the reigning meta was that of gaming NFTs. In April, dozens of new projects were popping up every single day. Now, the landscape looks quite different, market sentiment is low and the no one has yet played a game compelling enough to attract the crowds.
Earlier this year, after a very successful H2 2021, Axie Infinity was the subject of much conversation. The concept of ‘play-to-earn’ that it introduced was highly debated.
Some saw it as a dystopian symbol of capitalism and called out the Manager/Scholar model where ‘Manager’ lends an NFT to ‘Scholar’ for a cut of their in-game earnings, which most extracted out of the game to be able to convert the crypto rewards into cash. Others would argue that it was still revolutionary, that the game represented a very real opportunity for players in the Philippines for instance, where the ability to earn crypto through playing a game was shot at financial freedom.
Quite bleak when you look at the death spiral that occurred, and the amount of players that were lured in by the false promise of infinite growth. It was an inflection point for the Web3 gaming space as a whole – a cautionary tale which has pushed game and economy designers alike to be more geared towards sustainability. Now is the time when designers will invent and innovate the most. The rest remains to be seen.
When observing the market cap of different categories of Gaming NFTs, you can see the play-to-earn category, aka P2E, took a nose dive, taking the other categories down with it. So far, gaming projects implementing blockchain-enabled digital assets have been experiments. There will be many more coming, glad to have you with us along the ride.
Stardust tech enables Blockchain-Free Interactions for Players
At the Watch, we’ve talked about how one of the major barriers to entry to Web3 gaming is interacting with the blockchain at all.
Stardust is solving this problem, making it easier for blockchain-enabled games to give players a seamless user experience. This tech functions as a "blockchain-free API” meaning that it serves to conceal all interactions with the blockchain. Players don’t need to sign in with a wallet to play.
Stardust also provides other tools such as one-click NFT creation, easy fiat crypto payments. More recently they introduced the Stardust Vault, which makes it easy to safely store and transfer digital assets, without sacrificing customer experience nor speed.
Canaan Linder, Stardust CEO explains it as:
“From a gamer perspective, players won't see the Stardust Vault, but it makes their in-game interactions with NFTs smooth and safe.
When a gamer picks up or discards an NFT, the Vault safely and securely processes that transaction instantly in the cloud, allowing the gamer to continue their journey without having to wait for the blockchain to catch up."
Treeverse Releases their first Combat Demo, Website & Monthly Update for July
One of the most highly-anticipated games in the Web3 gaming space, Treeverse, released a trailer for the Combat Demo this week.
Alongside the trailer they also launched a brand new website. There you can find out more information on the game setting, gameplay (includes quests and exploration; building and forging; etc), NFT collections including the plots of land which will allow holders to rent out their plots “to other adventurers given they pay the price set by the landlord”.
The Treeverse Monthly Update for July includes updates for concept, engineering and game design. They also advertised open positions for roles including 3D Artist, C# Unity Dev and Lead Engineer.
The team communicated that they aim to release a private pre-alpha to get feedback from users on their combat system, with more details to come soon.
Worldwide Webb drops Game Update
Worldwide Webb won over peoples’ hearts with its first beta version – the quests, how the game was accessible from browser on any device and of course the nostalgic pixel art.
The MMORG metaverse first launched on November 10th 2021 and invited players to complete a ‘whitelist quest’ in order to be able to have early access to the Genesis Land sale. 6900 land parcels were minted for 0.069 ETH, since then $60M+ worth of land has been traded and the record sale stands at a high of 86.9 ETH, equal to $139k+ at time of writing.
Land prices seem to have followed the overall crypto market downtrend which began in May. Nonetheless, the Worldwide Webb team have been building steadily and today they are dropping a long-awaited update!
The update features major improvements to landholder alpha including:
Item & Mount Crafting using rewards to Defend the Webb
All-new game mechanics: Fishing, Herbalism, Mining
A new zone: The Graveyard
Apartment permissions for Design & Entrance delegation
Synchronised in-game apartment streaming through Radio & YouTube
You can try playing WWW for yourself right here, right now.
Webaverse NFT Drop Week
Webaverse, a metaverse project which has grown very popular amongst Twitter communities, launches long-awaited NFT mints this week. You can check out their NFT drop website here. We will be waiting with impatience to report back next week and assess market sentiment.
And if you’re wondering, what is Webaverse? Take a look:
