Chinese Regulations cause Number of Young Gamers to Drop by 32%, Worldwide Webb partners with Immutable X and GameStop NFT & Webaverse Sells Out

Aug 11, 2022

Worldwide Webb partners with Immutable X & GameStop NFT

Where previously Worldwide Webb had been operating on the L1 Ethereum blockchain, it will now begin to scale on the L2 by partnering with Immutable X. This means players will be able to trade NFTs in “IMX-powered marketplaces”.

So far, we know that:

Immutable X and StarkWare will enable 80k+ players access to gas-free NFT trading on the Immutable Marketplace.
Immutable will be bringing fast, gas-free, carbon-neutral transactions to Worldwide Webb’s interoperable MMORPG with over 1M+ NFTs available in-game.
Immutable ⓧ @Immutable
We’re hyperscaling @Worldwide_WEB3 on L2 Ethereum⚔️ This next-generation MMORPG builds a truly interoperable gaming experience & already has 1M+ NFTs in its game economy @Immutable X + @StarkWareLtd enables 80k+ players gas-free NFT trading on IMX-powered marketplaces Cont. 👇
1:03 PM ∙ Aug 9, 2022
976Likes192Retweets

More details remain to be announced regarding their partnership with the GameStop NFT marketplace.

Worldwide Webb @Worldwide_WEB3

Thrilled to announce our partnership with @GameStopNFT 🕹️ This is a crucial step towards building a truly interoperable metaverse for all players. Be on the look out, more exciting things are on the horizon! 🌐

Worldwide Webb has recently announced some new NFT collections which will be interoperable within the pixel metaverse. These include Treeverse Timeless characters, Deadfellaz, Boki and more.

For now, only land NFT holders have access to the alpha, but as soon as the public alpha is released, anyone holding NFTs mentioned prior will be able to wear theirs as an avatar skin in-game.

hack3r.eth @WebbEmotional

This is something we've been working very hard on. Giving apartments the power to connect to web2, and web3 apps. Apartment owners can play youtube videos inside their apartments and sync playtime with every other visitor. Allowing for live, synchronised video/audio events.

Oh and by the way for anyone attending Gamescom 2022 on August 23–28, Immutable X will be there. If you’re interested in meeting up to talk Web3 gaming with them reach out here.

The Impact of China’s Regulations on Youth Gaming

Introduced in September 2021, China’s new regulations on video game playtime for young users slashed the number of children and teens playing online games in 2022. From 2020 to 2022, the number of young gamers dropped by 31.97%, but Niko Partners forecast a return to near-peak levels by 2026 with 56% of the youth population playing games.

The “anti-addiction” policy was introduced by the NPPA to fight the “spiritual opium” video games are as described by a Chinese state media outlet. The policy requested for game publishers to comply and for parents to enforce certain rules on gaming within households. They stated people under 18 years old should be allowed to play only on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and legal holidays, for 1hr per day between 8pm and 9pm – limiting minors to just 3hrs playtime a week.

In 2022, the percentage of youth gamers (6–17 years old population) has dropped to just 40% , compared to 49% of the overall population that play games.

Webaverse Sells Out ‘Genesis Pass’ NFTs

Last week, we said we’d update you on how the Webaverse Public NFT mint went and well, seems as though it couldn’t have gone better! Not only did 20,000 NFTs sell out in the midst of a bear market, many came to Twitter to express how “smooth” their minting experience went, which was a carefully-designed auction.

Needless to say, the Web3 community has strong belief in Webaverse. What sets this project out from the rest is that they’re actually building a metaverse that is open in all senses of the word, as well as adopting a well-thought approach to world-building to maximise creativity and involvement of builder-players. Could this help propel user-generated content to a new level?

jin @dankvr

Was asked what I consider for a metaverse to be "open", in short: - freedom of expression: custom avatars / worlds - freedom to transact: neutral infrastructure for payments - leverages interoperable open standards and/or open source cont..

jin @dankvr

- right of exit: low switching costs to migrate content to third party clients - strong guarantees of privacy: ability to self host a client / presence server, inspect what's happening under the hood (linux vs windows)

On August 2021, Webaverse published an article on their blog titled ‘Storyweaving with AI’ where both Avaer and Jin set out to explain collaborative narrative creation, how AI can help and why it is so important in the crafting of virtual worlds.

On the bigger-picture significance of story: “What inspired early explorers to take the dangerous journey across the great oceans? We need more than a technological foundation to connect virtual worlds together. The open metaverse is also a cultural phenomenon emerging in terms of coordination and alignment. There has to be compelling stories that can guide us all in the right direction.”
On the usefulness of AI for story-writing: “You don't have to be a programmer to use AI to make your life easier, especially if you have a good imagination. The experience is somewhat like having a real-time conversational creative partner helping you to better shape your ideas.”