Another week, another smashing podcast is out, this time with Ultra Games’ co-CEO Nicolas Gilot.
I’ve known Nicolas since 2018, which was when Ultra first announced its vision of building a blockchain-based distribution platform for PC games.
Reading between the lines, the process since been a hard slog, partly because when you’re building such a platform, you have to build a lot of different pieces.
For Ultra, this means building the Ultra blockchain itself, integrating the Theta streaming platform, and then building its own game distribution system, an NFT marketplace, an esports and tournament platform, plus all the usual game systems such as multiplayer, achievements, messaging, payments etc.
As Carl Sagan put it, ““If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe”.
But even with all this well underway, Ultra now has to solve the ‘cold start’ problem in that it’s a marketplace/platform with very few users because blockchain games have a relatively small — if passionate — audience.
In that context, Ultra’s working with thirdparty developers on two exclusive web3 games; a sports title and a shooter.
And it’s also worth pointing out it supports web2 games, both in terms of distribution but also in terms of its esports opportunities, which could result in players gaining rewards of crypto, NFTs or other discounts.
For, as Nicolas points out, the advantage of Ultra’s approach is that it’s built the entire stack from scratch with the underlying blockchain providing the potential to act as a massive flywheel for (financial) activity when it does eventually arise.
You can read an edited transcription of our conversation on BlockchainGamer.biz and find out more about Ultra here.
This Substack is sponsored by Hiro Capital: Investing in the future of gaming
Calendar
Legendary Heroes Unchained launches 2nd closed alpha — 16th June
Gala’s RPG Eternal Paradox closes its playtest — 28th June
MechaFightClub NFT refund ends - 29th June
Unioverse releases 2nd character Krishah — 30th June
Heroes of Mavia launches mobile beta — 30th June
New NFT Trading Protocol news
DigiDaigaku developer Limit Break has announced the release of Payment Processor, an NFT marketplace protocol contract using the company’s ERC721-C standard, which it claims is the first to enforce creator royalties at a protocol level.
Payment Processor supports all NFTs using the ERC721 or ERC1155 standards and runs on Ethereum and Polygon mainnets and various testnets.
Limit Break says it’s compared Payment Processor to OpenSea’s Seaport and Blur’s Exchange protocols, finding it’s generally more efficient in terms of gas costs — especially in large bundles — as well as being more secure.
The initial code is now available in Github while Limit Break is working with partners to productivize the tech. Read the full details here.
Snoop’s Dynamic NFTs news
Still going hard into NFTs, Snoop Dogg has released his new Passport Series that will change and reflect his summer tour, which kicks off on 7th July.
Priced at 0.025 ETH (c.$40) and live on Arbitrum, each NFT holder will receive various airdrops, behind-the-scene content, access to new mints, and merch offers as the tour rolls through its various locations.
Additional Links
Animoca’s Mocaverse NFT collection has launched its own marketplace with Rarible.
Mythical’s NFL Rivals mobile is reportedly approaching 1 million downloads with an average daily playtime of 2 hours. Mrs Jordan is a fan but hasn’t bought any NFTs yet!
Former SEC chairman Jay Clayton says “many, if not the vast majority, of the tokens that were sold for cash would fall within the definition of a security in America”, which is why you likely shouldn’t be doing public token sales.
It’s not just the SEC which has become problematic during the Biden administration. The FTC has also gone mad.
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