What are NFTs and their implication in the video game industry?

 

SEGA, Square Enix, Take-Two, Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, Zynga, and other companies are betting on blockchain-based technology with investments and speeches that make it unclear how it will affect video games.

The development of the NFTs game has dominated media headlines and social media discussions throughout this year. It is the fashionable term, the new technology that is going to change the world. The video game industry has not been slow to jump on the bandwagon. This week, Phil Spencer, head of Xbox, railed against non-fungible tokens: "There's a lot of speculation and experimentation [...] it feels more exploitative than about entertainment."

During the previous months and weeks, some of the big companies in the sector announced that they were researching, investing, and/or developing in the fusion of NFTs and video games. Electronic Arts, Take-Two, SEGA, Square Enix and Zynga talked about it in their financial reports, that is, in front of shareholders. However, the developers and employees of the large companies in the sector themselves have no interest in the technology. As games as a service, DLC, social games, and other seasonal terms have prospered with more or less success, investors are rubbing their hands when they hear about it.

On the other side of the scale, the players and the video games themselves. Users wonder, first, what is this about NFTs; second, how will they affect the hobby they enjoy; and third, the threat that technology poses to the future of the planet we live on. Regarding the video games themselves, there is the question of what innovations would be obtained both from the point of view of creativity and from the point of view of marketing and monetization.

NFT technology and the blockchain have existed in the video game industry for more than three years , despite the fact that it was not until 2021 that the terms took over the headlines of media like this. But before going into it, we are going to explain what we mean by those acronyms and that anglicism.

The blockchain and the NFT: decentralized digital capitalism

The blockchain is the system that allows the existence of cryptocurrencies and NFTs. It is a huge network that proves that a digital item, whether it is a currency like Bitcoin or Binance, or an image, belongs to a specific person or entity. This membership is not controlled by a public or private body, but by each and every one of the network nodes, which makes counterfeiting practically impossible.

Our colleague Alberto González from Vandal Random makes a simile that serves to understand how it works: "[...] imagine for a moment that when we buy a car, the invoice that certifies that transaction, instead of being only in our wallet, was in all those wallets of those owners of a car. If someone wants to cheat us or falsify that invoice, they would have to alter all the invoices issued to date".

An NFT or non-fungible token development uses such technology to ensure that an image, a GIF, a soundtrack, a video clip or even an item for a video game is unique. Obviously, you can see, for example, that unique image on a social network or on the website of an auction house, take a screenshot and say: "well, I already have it, it won't be so unique". But it's not yours. As if it were a limited edition figure with a specific serial number or the first printing of a comic from the 70s, the item has value for its maximum scarcity: there is only one. The reason why millions of dollars are paid for a digital good is, as in collecting, speculation .

The promises of the blockchain are not something new in video games

Axie Infinity was released in 2018. It is not the only game that makes use of NFTs, as there are many others like CrpytoKitties, Plant Vs Undead, and Wanaka. However, it is the most successful. Players of the Sky Mavis-created title buy unique monsters (which are NFTs), train and upgrade them in battles, and sell them to other players.

 

The game's popularity grew by 5,000% between April and October 2021, reaching over two million daily active users. Starting to play, that is, buying one of its creatures, costs around 1,500 dollars as of November 2021, which leads new players to ask for loans from veteran players, to whom they will later have to pay a high percentage of the possible benefits they get.

The idea of ​​earning money playing video games, play to earn as defined by the creator of Axie, is the most commented premise when talking about the relationship between interactive entertainment and blockchain technology. But it is not something new: you will remember the auction house that Diablo III had at its launch or the players who illegally sold World of Warcraft gold. From PC Gamer they remember Entropia Universe, an MMO that has been active for almost 20 years in which its community, currently around 86,000 users, has been selling properties for years. As of 2009, the purchase and sale between user had moved 420 million dollars.

There have also been bets on the trade of other types of digital goods in the video game industry. Brian Fargo, founder of inXile Entertainment and Interplay ( Wasteland, The Bard's Tale ) is behind Robot Cache, a blockchain-based digital PC game store with a unique premise: players can resell their games to other users. Three years later, the store is still in the beta phase and important publishers are missing, but in its catalog, we can find games like Ghostrunner, Cristales, The Walking Dead, and classics like Roller Coaster Tycoon.

In recent months, some well-known studies have begun to make their first steps with the blockchain. Microsoft bundled its Azure servers and the development NFT technology into a Minecraft server for educational purposes (specifically, teaching about space and women scientists). In Azure Space Mystery, players get unique items (NFT) that give them access to meet Minecraft versions of great scientists from the last 14 centuries.

 

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How to Hire Video Game Developers For Video Game Development Company?

The gaming industry has taken a boom in the last few years. If we talk about numbers, according to NewZoo, the worth of the video gaming industry was $159.3 Billion in 2020. Video games are not just something for fun now, players and users expect much more from video game developers. Creating such products that just do not satisfy the player’s needs and exceed their expectations is what video game development company are thriving for.

Though kickstarting a new game-making studio is not an easy task. This business requires a team with a huge passion to create games and earn money from these video games. The idea of the approach is to create such unique games that will reach millions of people in the world and gain popularity. This growth demands more professionals in this field.

This just can not be obtained by finding someone with a good CV, the whole process includes a deep dig down to grab the right talent. Read on to learn more about Mobile game developers and the process of hiring video game developers.

Read Complete Blog Here -  https://theninehertz.com/blog/how-to-hire-video-game-developers-video-game-development


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Video-Game Piracy Group 'Team Xecuter' Leaders in Custody

The Department of Justice (DoJ) has nabbed two alleged leaders of a global, notorious video-game piracy group called Team Xecuter.

The two leaders in custody, Max Louarn (48, a French national of Avignon) and Gary Bowser (51, a Canadian national from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic), allegedly led the criminal enterprise’s efforts to hack popular video-game consoles so they could be used to play pirated copies of video games. The DoJ also charged Team Xecuter member Yuanning Chen, 35, a Chinese national of Shenzhen, China.

Video-game manufacturers govern the use of major consoles to play copyrighted video-game titles with end-user licensing agreements, which prevents anyone from duplicating, modifying and selling the software. In addition, console manufacturers and game developers implement various technical measures – from specific game cartridge designs to cryptographic keys on the software – to prevent the use of unauthorized firmware that could be used to play pirated video games.

Team Xecuter, which says in underground advertisements that it’s been around since 2001, has bypassed these measures by developing and selling illegal “circumvention” devices. One example is a USB device that the group sold starting in 2018 called the SX Pro, which allows the Nintendo Switch console to run pirated games.

Beyond the Nintendo Switch, the cybercrime group also targeted popular consoles such as the Nintendo 3DS, the Nintendo Entertainment System Classic Edition, the Sony PlayStation Classic and Microsoft Xbox.

“These defendants were allegedly leaders of a notorious international criminal group that reaped illegal profits for years by pirating video game technology of U.S. companies,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Brian Rabbitt of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, in a Friday announcement. “These arrests show that the department will hold accountable hackers who seek to commandeer and exploit the intellectual property of American companies for financial gain, no matter where they may be located.”

According to court documents, the Team Xecuter group is comprised of more than a dozen individual members worldwide. That includes: Developers who exploit vulnerabilities in video-game consoles and design the circumvention devices; website designers who create the various websites promoting and advertising these devices; suppliers who manufacture the devices; and resellers who distribute the devices.

According to the DoJ, the group has continuously evaded law-enforcement efforts by using a wide variety of brand names, websites and distribution channels. Between June 2013 through August 2020, for instance, Team Xecuter used a variety of product names for its devices, such as the Gateway 3DS, the Stargate, the TrueBlue Mini, the Classic2Magic and the SX line of devices (that includes the SX OS, as well as the SX Pro, the SX Lite and the SX Core). The group also allegedly masked its illegal activity by pretending to support gaming enthusiasts who wanted to design their own video games for non-commercial use.

The DoJ also said that behind the scenes, Team Xecuter was supporting online libraries of pirated video games for its customers, and several of the devices also came preloaded with numerous pirated games. Ironically, the group also used a licensing scheme to protect its circumvention software from being pirated, the department said.

“According to the indictment, Team Xecuter was so brazen that it even required customers to purchase a ‘license’ to unlock the full features of its custom firmware, the SX OS, in order to enable the ability to play pirated video games,” according to the DoJ.

The video-game and enthusiast markets are lucrative industries for cybercriminals. A recent report highlighted that credential-theft targeting hardcore gamers has hit an all-time high as scams, illicit markets and account takeovers have become a booming business. Meanwhile, hackers are scoring more than a million dollars annually selling compromised accounts for the popular Fortnite video game in underground forums.

Video-game companies are cracking down on these security challenges, and in particular the issue of piracy – with Nintendo filing two lawsuits against Nintendo Switch piracy resellers that were part of Team Xecuter, as well as against UberChips, a website that sold Team Xecuter’s hardware. Last week, UberChips agreed to a $2 million settlement with Nintendo.

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How to Create a Successful Gaming App?

How to create a game app is a comprehensive guide, explaining the entire process of creating and publishing games for iOS and Android. Covering all the essential information a budding game developer needs to know.

 

Read More - https://www.brsoftech.com/blog/how-to-create-a-game-app/

 

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AI is Fostering in a New Era of Video Game Development

With Fortnite, developer Epic Games didn’t just create an internationally acclaimed game; they built a new virtual space for socializing. With the PlayStation VR, Sony released the first mass-market console that allowed us to experience high-definition virtual reality in the comfort of our own living rooms.

There are countless more examples of revolutionary changes in the gaming industry that have happened just over the past two decades. All of them point to the same conclusion:

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Game Development with .NET

We’ve launched a new Game Development with .NET section on our site. It’s designed for current .NET developers to explore all the choices available to them when developing games. It’s also designed for new developers trying to learn how to use .NET by making games. We’ve also launched a new game development Learn portal for .NET filled with tutorials, videos, and documentation provided by Microsoft and others in the .NET game development community. Finally, we launched a step-by-step Unity get-started tutorial that will get you started with Unity and writing C## scripts for it in no time. We are excited to show you what .NET has to offer to you when making games. .NET is also part of Microsoft Game Stack, a comprehensive suite of tools and services just for game development.

.NET for game developers

.NET is cross-platform. With .NET you can target over 25+ different platforms with a single code base. You can make games for, but not limited to, Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS, Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo, and mixed reality devices.

C## is the most popular programming language in game development. The wider .NET community is also big. There is no lack of expertise and support you can find from individuals and user groups, locally or online.

.NET does not just cover building your game. You can also use it to build your game’s website with ASP.NET, your mobile app using Xamarin, and even do remote rendering with Microsoft Azure. Your skills will transfer across the entire game development pipeline.

Available game engines

The first step to developing games in .NET is to choose a game engine. You can think of engines as the frameworks and tools you use for developing your game. There are many game engines that use .NET and they differ widely. Some of the engines are commercial and some are completely royalty free and open source. I am excited to see some of them planning to adopt .NET 5 soon. Just choose the engine that better works for you and your game. Would you like to read a blog post to help you learn about .NET game engines, and which one would be best for you?

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