Web3 Weekly 11/9

🟨 Partnerships x Partnerships, Immutable and Ubisoft party up, Fortnite OG nostalgia, and more web3 gaming news

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Web3 No Re
November 09, 2023

Gm, ga, and gn players.

I hope those of you who were at Apefest are resting your retinas: the web3 game launches are coming!

We are rolling into the end of the year, and there are a few titles due to drop early access next month, but we’ve been graced with a Fortnite nostalgia bomb to tide us over. Keeping it short and sweet today - you know the drill:

  • Partnerships x Partnerships

  • Change Log

  • Immutable x Ubisoft - Gaming Giants Party Up

  • Release Radar

  • Fortnite Nostalgia and Web3 Game Lore

  • Other News

Partnerships x Partnerships

Another major week in partnerships, with ecosystems leading the charge in game alignment. As web3 gaming moves toward multi-chain development, several ecosystems are strengthening their partnerships to increase functionality and exclusive titles.

Aptos x BlockGames. Aptos partnered with player network BlockGames to support the Aptos gaming community on BlockGames.

KLKTN (Animoca Brands Japan) x Cool Cats Group. Digital experience creator KLKTN, a subsidiary of Animoca Brands Japan, partnered with Cool Cats Group to develop a Cool Cats Manga and expand brand presence in Japan.

Oasys x Singularity. Oasys partnered with payment provider Singularity to integrate a more streamlined payment system, starting with 9Lives Arena.

Phantom Galaxies x SHRAPNEL. Phantom Galaxies, developed by Animoca Brands’ Blowfish Studios, partnered with SHRAPNEL to develop cross-game content.

Ronin x Act Games. Ronin partnered with Act Games to migrate its portfolio to the Sky Mavis’ network. The partnership kicked off with the launch of Zoids Wild Arena.

Sui x Singularity. Sui partnered with the verifiable compute layer Space and Time (SxT) to provide ZK Tools for linking in-game activities to on-chain incentives.

Change Log

Immutable x Ubisoft - Gaming Giants Party Up

Immutable has been at the top of our Top Gaming Tokens by Market Cap since September, and at the time of writing, IMX is up nearly 60% over the past 30 days. They are showing no signs of stopping with their latest partnership. Immutable will be partnering with Ubisoft and has big claims that they will unlock the potential of Web3. Whilst it is big talk, this collaboration brings together a leader in the web3 gaming world and a giant in the traditional video game creation and publishing world.

It’s still early days, so the partnership details are yet to be defined - this is actually the first line item on their to-do list. All we know so far is that Ubisoft will be collaborating through its Strategic Innovation Lab, which is all about crafting tomorrow’s gaming universe. In 2022 and 2023, Ubisoft’s Strategic Innovation Lab has continued to forge the path of innovation through the Ubisoft Entrepreneurs Lab’s seventh season, focusing on Positive Entertainment and Web3. Picture this: a PC game that cleans the oceans (Ender Ocean), a musical miracle for dyslexia (Mila Learn), and a game that plants real trees for virtual ones (My Lovely Planet). It’s not just games; there’s PoseAI transforming motion capture, while Starchain Gazer and Yumon are redefining community and monetization in the gaming sphere.

I’m sure you guys are no stranger to the work being done down under at Immutable, as we’ve covered a few updates across these weeklies. With their social sign-on and account creation flows from earlier in the year to their movement towards the Immutable zkEVM mainnet launch, we’re gassed to see what Ubisoft and Immutable will cook up.

Release Radar

Fortnite Nostalgia and Web3 Game Lore

Fortnite has only been out for six years, but the nostalgia from Fortnite OG is very real. I’ve (Griffin) played more Fortnite over the past week than I have in the last two years combined. Apparently, I’m not alone either because the game saw 44.7M players and a high of 6.2M concurrent players on the first day of the event.

When we look at powerful game IP and nostalgia, we often benchmark against Pokémon, Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, and other successful franchises. But trying to replicate the success of franchises that have had +25 years to develop is almost a nonstarter for web3 games. Zooming out, the timeline of Mario’s existence dwarfs that of Tomato Town, but Fortnite was able to generate the same level of success through nostalgia anyway.

One of the biggest lessons I think web3 games could learn from Fornite is the importance of lore in games. Lore has become a massive focus for web3 games, with recent launches like Sugartown prefacing their game with blog posts, videos, and emails covering the game lore. That said, I have no idea what the backstory of Peely is and virtually no concept of Fortnite’s main characters. I do a bit more now, but only after really diving back into the game.

This is not to say that lore isn’t important. However, the need for a game to be enjoyable and returned to by users will provide far more stickiness for your IP and franchise than just lore alone. I don’t want to spend the time learning all about the history of Oras if I’m going to play the game once. Building lore should happen over time and grow alongside the game.

Rather than dumping large storylines for characters, Fornite slowly released backstories and narrative points throughout the progression of seasons. Its success was built on the game’s virality but received an added layer of stickiness through its storytelling. Web3 games, particularly those looking to develop new IP, should look to implement a similar approach for greater short to mid-term success.

Other News

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