Blockchain News, Tips, Tricks & Ideas

This is not investment advice. The author has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Wccftech.com has a disclosure and ethics policy.

EVE Online needs little introduction. Created by Icelandic studio CCP Games, for over 20 years it’s been the poster child for the immersive, community-driven MMO scene.

It’s amazing how a single sentence can serve up a rollercoaster of emotions, especially when I’m being baited by the idea of a Steam Deck rival. In this case, the culprit was an announcement for a brand new handheld that uses PlaytronOS, an open-source Linux operating system that’ll allegedly take the fight to SteamOS and Windows. Ambitious, right? Well, the reveal also included the words ‘Web3’, so I've already accepted that this one’s for the Crypto bros. 

Final Fantasy 7's lead characters have been turned into action figures of all descriptions, most of them selling out quickly without much controversy surrounding them. Cloud, Tifa, and Aertih's Bring Arts figures were the exception. The collectibles caused a stir when they went on sale in 2022 due to the NFT versions of the figures that came with their Digital Plus editions. Square Enix is now selling the Cloud and Tifa options again following Rebirth's release but has made the wise decision to do so without including any NFTs.

The Web3 gaming sector is on the cusp of going mainstream with notable game publishers now shifting their focus towards emerging fresher technologies. In order to attract web3 game developers to put their best foot forward, three parties have formed an alliance. Venture firms Immutable and King River Capital along have tied up with blockchain firm, the Polygon Labs to set up a fund of $100 million (roughly Rs. 83 crores) under the name – the Inevitable Games Fund (IGF).

EVE Online developer CCP Games has revealed more details about its upcoming "survival experience," Project Awakening, which has a playtest on the way soon. It's on the whole still very mysterious, with no in-game screenshots to indicate what it's actually meant to look like, but we do at least know a little bit more about its setting and concept.

CCP Games have shared a few more details about Project Awakening, a new game or at least, "survival experience" set in the Eve Online universe, which is getting a closed playtest from 21st May 2024. Project Awakening is a single-shard affair - that is, one in which all players inhabit the same world, rather than being split up across servers or instances. It's "built upon the principles of freedom, consequence, and mastery within a living universe", and "represents the next step in CCP Games' journey to create virtual worlds more meaningful than real life", which, you know, wind your neck in.

A new server group, [NAEU102], has landed in the Night Crows Update. The ‘Kroma’ Chain, one of the six blockchains serviced by the game, will undergo temporary restrictions due to detected issues.

Earlier this year, Readyverse Studios – co-founded by blockchain tech company Futureverse and Ernest Cline, the mind behind the sci-fi franchise Ready Player One – announced “The Readyverse,” an interactive platform for metaverse games and experiences. Readyverse Studios partnered with Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) to help bring the popular novel to the metaverse across web3. WBD distributed the 2018 film adaptation directed by Stephen Spielberg.

Pig-butchering scammers have likely stolen more than $75 billion from victims around the world, far more than previously estimated, according to a new study.

Fans of collectible card games (CCG) can look forward to Cards of Eternity, a newly announced CCG based on The Wheel of Time fantasy franchise. The developer is Aether Games, which made the eponymous trading card game (TCG) Aether, which features blockchain and NFTs support and is therefore only available via the Epic Games Store (Steam does not allow blockchain or NFTs).

Before the world became fixated on artificial intelligence, thanks to generative AI’s advances, cryptocurrency was the darling of many investors. So when some venture capital firms started swiftly switching their focus between AI and crypto, the industry’s onlookers scorn their opportunism. Meanwhile, a wave of entrepreneurs emerged as fervent advocates for the convergence of AI and crypto. Vitalik Buterin, the core founder of the Ethereum blockchain network, posted an article last month musing on the four possible applications of “AI + crypto,” sparking enthusiasm among his Twitter followers. The use cases have yet to be proven at scale.

Square Enix representative director and president Takashi Kiryu has written a new year's letter outlining the Final Fantasy publisher's plans for 2024, while offering a few reflections on the year that was. The topline: they want to do more with generative "AI" machine learning tools, and they're still dead keen on metaversy VR/AR stuff. The blockchain remains a "focus", too, though it gets much less of a billing than in 2023's new year letter from Square Enix’s previous president Yosuke Matsuda.

Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox

The Epic Games Store will allow blockchain games rated Adults-Only back on the PC marketplace after a new exception to its content policy.

Epic Games Store has relaxed its content guidelines for publishers to allow games which have been rated Adults Only by the ESRB, so long as the rating has only been applied due to the presence of blockchain technology.

Covenant Child, an upcoming blockchain MMORPG with a play-to-earn model, has begun a global open beta. 

One year after one of the most talked about software upgrades since the Y2K changeover more than two decades ago, crypto's most important commercial highway risks becoming a victim of its own success.

The team behind Abyss Online is responding to questions about the project’s original blockchain-based origins, about controversial monetization, and the new direction for the in-development sandbox MMORPG.

Bitcoin developer Blockstream Corp. is betting that the world's most valuable cryptocurrency is poised for a massive rebound, and is buying up Bitcoin mining rigs so that it can sell them for a profit later should the prediction hold.

Last week, Josh «The Foreman» Foreman, the Senior Level Designer for Blankos Block Party, announced his departure from the Mythical Games development team. Foreman shared this news in a heartfelt statement, reflecting on his past 3+ years with the company and expressed his hopes for the future of the game.

Missed the GamesBeat Summit excitement? Don't worry! Tune in now to catch all of the live and virtual sessions here.