News Mash-Up - Week # 50

• • These past weeks saw a lot of news about NFTs:

    • GSG Game World, the developer of the upcoming game STALKER 2, announced it was going to release an NFT based on a timed competition but reversed the decision within 48 hours based on negative feedback.

    • Peter Molyneux’s 22 Cans company developed an NFT land-based “game” called Legacy. The game also comes with its own cryptocurrency called LegacyCoin. Pre-sales of Legacy NGT have already surpassed $50 million.

    • Justin Kan, the co-founder of Twitch, will launch Fractal and will serve as a marketplace for gaming NFTs.

    • Turnt Gaming announced partnerships with Polygon Studios and Esports Technologies to develop Taunt Battleworld, an upcoming fighting game simulator built around NFT combatants.

    • The Blockchain Alliance, an organization promoting this blockchain phenomenon estimated game-related NFT trading drummed up $2.3 billion in Q3’21, just over 1/5 of all NFT trades.

  • In a 24-minute video, Nintendo showcased 19 indie games. Except for two games, all are expected sometime in 2022. Notable games include Figment 2: Creed Valley, Endling: Extinction is Forever, OlliOlli World and Grime.

  • Digital sales for Square Enix’s Final Fantasy XIV, have been suspended due to the strain on servers that cannot keep pace with new accounts created. When the game’s expansion Endwalker was released on the 7th December, players had to queue to log in to the game, sometimes for several hours. The game’s free trial has also been suspended with priority given to users with an active subscription.

  • Ubisoft announced a remake of the original Splinter Cell (which was released in 2002). Ubisoft Toronto will make the game on the Ubisoft's Snowdrop engine and it is expected sometime in 2023.

  • Turtle Rock, the developer of Back 4 Blood, Evolve and the Left4Dead has been acquired by Tencent via its purchase of Turtle Rock’s parent company, Slamfire.

  • Sony will release 5 colored faceplates for the PS5 and 3 new colors for the DualSense controller from late January 2022. The faceplates will retail for $55 and the controller $75. Sony is currently in a legal battle with a 3rd party manufacturer, Dbrand for the development and sale of their own PS5 faceplates that went on the market earlier this year.

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Week commencing Monday 20 Dec. 2021