News Mash-Up - Week # 49

• • Ubisoft will launch its first NFT. Called “Digits” these are in-game items made by Ubisoft for the PC game Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint. The Digits will have serial numbers unique to a microtransaction. The NFTs will be stored on the Tezos blockchain, which it claims is far more energy-efficient than other blockchain engines. Ubisoft will create a new platform called “Ubisoft Quartz” to facilitate the selling and buying of the NFTs. In Quartz’s T&Cs Ubisoft will charge an “administration fee” to facilitate the selling of an NFT. The transactions of NFTs will be conducted by a third-party blockchain application Rarible or Objkt. Currently, Digits will only be sold in USA, Canada, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Australia and Brazil.

  • A German court has now ruled against a verdict that Nintendo won regards the cancellation of Nintendo eShop pre-orders within 7 days of a game release. Since September 2021 Nintendo has prevented the cancellation of pre-orders. The Federation of German Consumer Organisations (VZBV) put forward a case that a pre-order digital product is deemed worthless until the time of full release, and the Court agreed. As yet, Nintendo has not complied with this new ruling, its Terms & Conditions still state "Nintendo begins with the performance of its obligations before the cancellation period ends".

  • On January 12th 2022, PUBG will go free-to-play. Those people who bought the game will get free access to Battlegrounds Plus, a premium account upgrade, which includes 1,300 G-coin, a 100% boost to survival master experience point gain, ranked mode, access to custom matches, and a selection of in-game cosmetics.

  • Called “Google Play Games”, Google has announced a video game app service for the PC sometime in 2022.

  • Microsoft has rebranded Xbox GamePass for the PC to “PC Game Pass”.

  • Tencent has launched its own publication division called “Level Infinite”. In Europe, Level Infinite will be based in Amsterdam and will offer technology, production, and analytics support for its clients.

  • Sony has acquired another development studio, Valkyrie Entertainment. The studio is a to-hire and has helped to make games League of Legends, God of War, and Halo Infinite.

  • Kickstarter, the popular crowdfunding business, will move its operations onto the blockchain hosted by Celo.

•  
•  

Week commencing Monday 13 Dec. 2021