Scoop Online

Dan Houser had announced to leave Rockstar Games in the spring of 2020, to everyone’s surprise. The man is indeed co-founder of the studios with his brother Sam, and had written almost all the GTA games, as well as the two Red Dead Redemptions. Suffice to say that he was a key figure at Rockstar.

If he has since set up Absurd Venture, nothing has yet come out of this new company, and it is elsewhere that houser stands out today. He has indeed invested more than thirteen million dollars in Revolving Games, a studio until now specialized in free-to-play on mobile and which intends to use the blockchain (and therefore NFTs) for its next titles. A bundle of millions in addition to the first twenty-five already collected by the studio from various investors. By the way, Dan Houser also offers himself a place as an advisor in the management team of Revolving Games.

Two projects are in the studio’s pipeline: an MMO with 4x mechanics under the Battlestar Galactica license, and a game that will be inspired, according to the studio’s statements, by Nintendo’s great titles, such as Zelda or Animal Crossing, Skyborne Legacy. The latter was, according to the latest news, about to be released, scheduled for the beginning of October. Both titles have the ambition to be “AAA games that the industry will want to look back on”…

Dan Houser is the second “ex-GTA team” to give in to the sirens of web3. We have indeed understood between the lines that Everywhere, the ambitious project of Leslie Benzies (producer of GTA 3, 4 and 5) should also integrate blockchain technologies.

Did the creators of GTA work too much on gangster stories, to dive into this giant scam that is NFTs? Or will this technology end up imposing itself in the video game world, by dint of big projects that carry it? Because if the players seem to reject them en masse, it seems that there are always new investors to finance projects integrating NFTs… And above all, will GTA VI end up being released one day?

NFTs driven by music – And it is very necessary these days. Bear market, bear market and another crypto winter: the news remains very gloomy. However, that is without counting the NFT technology which continues to interest many sectors of the entertainment industry. At the start of the week, it is therefore the Universal Music Group (UMG) which sets the tone, together with two veterans of the music industry: Hit Boy and James Fauntleroy. In tune, the tenors ofamusement join forces for the NFT group of the Bored Ape Yacht Club: kingship.

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The NFT Kingship group on the front of the stage

The information was communicated yesterday, without fanfare. Two giants of US Rap production will embark, like Eminem and Snoop Dogg, on the Bored Ape Yatch Club adventure under a UMG label. Hit Boyproducer among others of Lil Wayne and James Fauntleroy, producer of Timbalake or Cardy B, get to work. They become so “co-executive producers and members of the band’s sound design team”.

This partnership pleases both parties. On the one hand, the UMG which breaks down slowly, but surely, its score and its conquest of the NFTs. On the other, Céline Joshua, the creator of Kingship adds a string to her bow:

“The journey of Kingship is rooted in storytelling, experiences and music. I can’t wait to see what will come from the crossover between web 3 collectors and creators and the music industry. »

Well orchestrated, this trio is in the logical sequence of the BAYC empire and its Metaverse Otherside which is starting to build. L’Universal Music Group is not, however, the only tenor to confirm his growing interest in NFTs. Indeed, industrialists, like Sony, artists, like Jamiroquai and Snoop Dogg: all tune their violins. The NFT will be the tomorrow hit.

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Yves Guillemot, CEO of Ubisoft, talked about the NFT in less enthusiastic terms than last time. It must be said that this is a controversial market, on which his company launched at the end of last year with a huge outcry — even internally where the initiative had been deemed disastrous.

In an interview given to GamesIndustry on September 10, he explained that the famous “Quartz” attached to the video game Ghost Recon Breakpoint, would have been developed only to explore possibilities of evolution of the video game. ” Exploring does not mean throwing “, he says. “ We weren’t very good in the way we explained that we were doing research (…) We should have said that we were working on the subject, and that when we have something that will bring you a real benefit, we will bring it to you. »

It must be said that at the time, however, it was indeed possible to buy Ubisoft’s “Quartz” (NFTs) with cryptocurrency. What was saying the original press release, dated December 7, 2021? that Ubisoft launched ” the first platform of eco-responsible NFTs playable in triple A games “. She was both a new experiment ” and ” the first step (…) for the development of a true metaverse “.

Nicolas Pouard, vice-president of the Strategic Innovations Lab department, had even assured, not without a touch of condescension, that gamers just didn’t fully understand what NFTs were and their potential: I think players don’t yet understand what such a market can bring them. At the moment, due to the context surrounding NFTs, players first think they are destroying the environment, since they are just for speculation. But, within Ubisoft, we see much further. “Words that already seem very far away…

Ubisoft regrets NFTs

Yves Guillemot justifies the gesture by Ubisoft’s ability to get started very quickly in new technologies – a sometimes laudable intention, it is true. ” We got into VR and Wii very early on. [motion gaming] — we are always trying new things. Sometimes it works. Sometimes not (…). The goal of a company is always to create the best possible experience and new technologies help because there is less competition and people are more interested “, he says. Ubisoft was therefore afraid of missing the bandwagon, but de facto contributed to strengthening the craze for a very controversial product.

Beyond the ecological argument, on which Ubisoft wanted to be as reassuring as possible with the eco-responsible Tezos blockchain (2.5g of Co² per transaction), its Quartz had never been convinced of the real benefit for the players.

Officially, the CEO does not totally bury the NFTs: ” It’s a rapidly changing industry and it’s very cautious about its impacts. Like many things, in its early stages, it’s imperfect, but like other technologies, they’ll manage to find the right path. ” To be continued.