nfts not coming to fortnite says epic games – hacker noon · nfts not coming to fortnite says...
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10/16/18, 4:24 PMNFTs Not Coming to Fortnite Says Epic Games – Hacker Noon
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Martine ParisTech reporter covering AI, crypto, blockchain for The FinTech Times, Blockchain Gamer/PocketGamer, Grit Daily, Hacker Noon, Geekazine muckrack.com/martineparisOct 16 · 5 min read
NFTs Not Coming to Fortnite SaysEpic GamesCrypto pioneers are placing bets on gaming to deliverthe Krst billion people to blockchain despite bigpublishers holding back. Tony Cheng of Decentralandsays they’ll never get onboard. Meanwhile Ubisoft movesforward with Blockchain Game Alliance. When willCryptoKitties make a cameo in South Park PhoneUnleashed?
Marshmello, winner of E3 Battle Royale Fortnite Pro-Am, photo by David Stelzer
10/16/18, 4:24 PMNFTs Not Coming to Fortnite Says Epic Games – Hacker Noon
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If 2017 was about fundraising, and 2018 was about infrastructure, then
2019 will be about mass adoption, but whether global payments or
nonfungible tokens (NFTs) are the killer dApp is up for debate.
Many crypto pioneers at SF Blockchain Week said they’re placing bets on
gaming, including Garry Tan of Initialized Capital, an investor in
Horizon Blockchain Games, Bart Stephens of Blockchain Capital, an
investor in OpenSea an NFT exchange, and Jeremy Gardner of Augur
and Ausum Ventures.
At Global Blockchain Forum, Tan told CNBC’s Ran Neu Ner, “The Vrst
mass adoption product will be a mobile game where the end user won’t
even know they’re doing a transaction on the Ethereum network when
buying a digital good or participating in a marketplace. We’ll start to see
this in 18 months or less. It’s not too far away. My partner Alexis
Ohanian recently visited the Fortnite guys… people spend an insane
amount of money on digital goods.”
Gardner added, “Some time in the next one to two years there will be a
Pokemon Go-like game where people collect NFTs with unique
characteristics to level up, that have real world value, and can be
exchanged with anyone in the world. We’ll see a burgeoning economy
emerge out of some game and assets issued in that game will be
CNBC’s Ran Neu Ner with Initialized Capital’s Garry Tan, photo by Martine Paris
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interoperable with assets of other games. Gaming will be the Vrst case
with tens of millions of daily active users of crypto. NFTs make gaming
and online collectibles more valuable. The amount of time adolescents
spend on games is outrageous and they don’t make money on it. If
people can make money on games they’re playing, that sounds like the
future to me!”
At Back To The Crypto Future, Blockchain Capital’s Bart Stephens said,
“One of the areas that we are seeing organic demand in startup activity
and end user activity is the intersection of video games and crypto — nonfungible tokens. If you play a game like World of Warcraft or Second
Life, there are tens of millions, and if you include Asia, over a hundred
million users that live and play in these virtual worlds with virtual
economies and virtual currencies, and you can have virtual objects, but
at the end of the day until this year, all of those objects weren’t owned by
you. You might have spent a year of your life getting some super special
Vre sword but it turns out that in World of Warcraft you don’t own that
Vre sword. Blizzard Entertainment owned by Activision, a public
company, owns that Vre sword. So if you try to sell it for U.S. dollars, you
are out of luck as a gamer. That is changing now. Persistent worlds, even
casual games, you can earn something in game slaying a dragon and get
a magical coat of armor, you can pull that out of the game, go to
OpenSea and sell it for Bitcoin, and go to Coinbase and sell your Bitcoin
for U.S. Dollars. CryptoKitties was the Vrst example of that. There will be
many more games that capture the notion that videogamers own the
experience and work product and results of some endeavor online. So
that is an area where we’re actually seeing an organic demand
envirnoment unlike some of the other areas which are still early stage
like enterprise adoption, still at the proof of concept stage.”
When asked what’s standing in the way of adoption, Tan replied, “It’s
how users are being onboarded. Founders need to remove steps. There
are too many steps. It’s hard to get your hands on crypto, then once you
have it you need to transfer it to a wallet. How is a normal human being
going to Vgure out how to buy CryptoKitties?” Gardner added, “They
need a reason and good user experiences.”
Yes, gamers get crypto. Digital goods and virtual currency have been a
part of the industry since the dawn of gaming. There are 2.3 billion
10/16/18, 4:24 PMNFTs Not Coming to Fortnite Says Epic Games – Hacker Noon
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gamers worldwide who will spend $137.9 billion mostly on digital goods
this year, according to NewZoo. Top grossing games make over a million
a day. Candy Crush makes over $4 million a day for King. Clash Royale
and Clash of Clansmake millions a day for Supercell. SuperData
estimates that Fortnite made over $1 billion its Vrst nine months, and
Roblox which was just valued at $2.5 billion with 70 million monthly
active users.
Certainly, it would be huge if Fortnite, with its 125 million players and
78.3 million monthly active users, started to test NFTs on the blockchain,
except …
Epic told me there are no plans to integrate blockchain into Fortnite or
Unreal Engine.
You can’t spell nonFUNgible without FUN
At the NonFungible Summit co-sponsored by Blockchain Gamer, on my
Crypto Games panel, I was joined by Grant Hummer of SF Ethereum
Community Fund, Philippe Castonguay of Horizon Blockchain Games,
SF Ethereum Community Fund’s Grant Hummer and me speaking on the Crypto Games Panel at the
NonFUNgible Summit
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Linda Lu of 645 Ventures and Jel Tong, serial entrepreneur, as we
discussed what’s needed to get the top publishers on board.
We looked at the Steam Community Marketplace, a trading post of in-
game items for over 125 million registered users owned by Valve. A
simple integration with the 0x protocol could instantly make it one of the
largest NFT exchanges in the world.
We discussed Ubisoft’s burgeoning relationship with CryptoKitties which
began at its Blockchain Heroes hackathon this summer. Ubisoft has been
the most bullish of all the top publishers and recently formed the
Blockchain Gaming Alliance with Ethereum co-creator Joe Lubin of
ConsenSys, and executives from Fig, Alto, B2Expand, EverdreamSoft,
Gimli, Enjin, and Ultra, to create common standards and a more
interoperable and transparent ecosystem, which will beneVt
stakeholders, by furthering innovation and ensuring economic viability.
As to whether the top publishers will ever cross the line, Matt Condon,
producer of the Nonfungible Summit, shared this post from Tony Sheng
of Decentraland. In short, centralization serves them well. Gaming
simply may not be ready yet.
The jury is out whether the incumbents will resist or embrace the new
technology, but for the hundreds of blockchain game developers sitting
in the audience it was clear that we will have a metaverse of NFTs soon,
even if it takes the indies to lead the revolution. They just need to
remember to make the game fun and move blockchain to the backend.
As the tweet goes: You Can’t Spell NonFUNgible Without FUN!
Posted in Blockchain Gamer, October 16, 2018, by me
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10/16/18, 4:24 PMNFTs Not Coming to Fortnite Says Epic Games – Hacker Noon
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