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Weekly Roundup, March 5, 2021
It is less than two weeks since I kicked off the Building the Metaverse publication on Medium, and I’ve kept busy in that time! This…
It is less than two weeks since I kicked off the Building the Metaverse publication on Medium, and I’ve kept busy in that time! This newsletter will share more of what I’m thinking of, and give a shout back to some of the observations I’ve made during the previous week. If you’ve just joined me, thank you for spending some of your time with me.
Here are some of the things I’ve been writing about or thinking about over the last week:
The Economics of Games: Past to Present
I kicked off a 3-part series on the economics of the game business. I start with arcade machines and take it right to the present. If you want to be alerted about my deep-dive on free-to-play (f2p) then keep watching this newsletter.
NFTs and Games
NFTs and digital collectibles are red hot right now, but few understand how this will play out within games. The blockchain does provide an ensemble of new features that other forms of digital collectibles don’t, namely: true ownership, provable scarcity, provable provenance, permanence, programmability, and decentralization. You can read my extensive summary of the economy of NFTs with respect to games, including the typical objections I hear from developers and crypto fans, if you have about 20 minutes. If you have more like 2 minutes, I recommend my abridged list of 10 Things you Need to Know about Games and NFTs.
Observations and Reflections
There was an awful lot of activity this week:
TheoryCraft raised $37.5M in a Series A financing to build a new competitive PvP game.
Crypto.com raised a new $200M fund to invest in blockchain projects.
My team at Beamable released a spreadsheet interface for updating and managing the stats on content of a live game.
Six Days in Fallujah may be the most controversial game of 2021.
Microsoft Mesh demoware looks pretty amazing.
Samsung QLED Frame TV is a cool way to display your collection of NFT digital art.
Zynga made more moves towards the PC and console gaming market.
Epic bought Mediatonic, the creators of Fall Guy.
Totally nuts story about the fight between the publisher and studio and alleged piracy of The Sinking City.
I watched the 3LAU Ultraviolet auction sell for over $11M for 33 NFTs.
I watched the biggest sneaker drop in history (also an NFT).
In Superworld I bought the location (Temple IV in Tikal) where the X-Wings launched to assault the Death Star in Star Wars Episode IV.
I got excited for the new Pokemon open-world RPG game, which looks like Genshin Impact meets Pokemon.
I got excited about the return of Avatar to Nickolodeon.
I enjoyed reading this article on 9 types of currencies in free-to-play.
I really loved reading Firas Raouf’s write-up on why Companyon invested in Beamable.
If you want to watch what I’m watching in real-time, I recommend my Twitter feed. Once in a while I notice something before everyone else and you can learn about it along with me.
Another place to catch me is on Clubhouse, where you can follow me as well: I’m jradoff on the platform. I hope to be back on Sunday (which is another interesting story I’ll share soon). The Game Industry Cocktail Hour on Clubhouse is a great place to hang out if you work in or simply curious about games — we’re building an amazing culture of love and inclusion there.