Opening Day is here. With more people cutting the cord and additional games only available on streaming networks, watching baseball has gotten more complicated — and expensive. Here’s how much.
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Videogame maker Riot Games on Monday said it would lay off around 530 employees globally, or around 11% of its total staff, as it tries to narrow its focus after making what executives said were several years of “big bets” and expansion.
In a letter to employees, the company — owned by Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings
700,
and known for “League of Legends” — also said it was “sunsetting” its Riot Forge publishing unit and would cut the size of its “Legends of Runeterra” team.
The layoffs will occur over the next several weeks, the company said. Among other forms of assistance, Riot said it would offer a minimum of six months’ worth of salary for severance.
In the letter, Chief Executive Dylan Jadeja said that since 2019, Riot made “a number of big bets across the company” intended to serve gamers. As it expanded, adding games and staff, Riot doubled in size, accumulating multiple projects and higher costs along the way.
“Today, we’re a company without a sharp enough focus, and simply put, we have too many things underway,” he said. “Some of the significant investments we’ve made aren’t paying off the way we expected them to.”
“Our costs have grown to the point where they’re unsustainable, and we’ve left ourselves with no room for experimentation or failure — which is vital to a creative company like ours,” he continued. “All of this puts the core of our business at risk.”
Jadeja said the cuts were a necessity, and not done to “appease shareholders or to hit some quarterly earnings number.”
The moves come after the pandemic’s digital-demand boom gave way to a spike in prices for basic necessities in 2022, which left people with less room to spend on gaming. And amid shakiness in China’s economy, some of that country’s big tech companies — including Tencent — have ratcheted back investments, the South China Morning Post reported this month.
The layoffs, Jadeja said, followed hiring freezes and efforts to rein in costs. But he said those earlier changes, on their own, weren’t enough.
“We have to do more to focus our business and center our efforts on the things that drive the most player value — the things that are truly worth players’ time,” he said. “Unfortunately, this involves making changes in the area where we invest the most — our headcount.”
In a potentially significant step towards mainstream blockchain-enabled gaming adoption, Immutable, the blockchain gaming platform, secured a strategic partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS), according to the company’s recent announcement.
By joining forces with AWS, Immutable aims to leverage Amazon’s expansive network of game studio leads, thereby facilitating successful deal closures. In turn, game developers and studios will gain access to a comprehensive platform and ecosystem in web3 gaming.
Some promising games built on the Immutable X layer-2 blockchain include Gods Unchained, Guild of Guardians, Illuvium, Ember Sword, Blankos Block Party, Planet Quest, and GreenPark Sports. The company has also had extensive partnerships with top media companies such as Warner Bros to offer other blockchain-enabled interactive experiences.
Immutable offering AWS credits for web3 games.
Immutable’s inclusion in Amazon’s ISV Accelerate Program is vital to this partnership, a co-selling initiative for organizations offering software solutions that operate on or integrate with AWS. This program enables Immutable to tap into AWS’s expert resources, strategically aimed at securing prospective customers and closing deals with prominent global game studios.
Further, Immutable will provide game studios with up to $100,000 in AWS cloud credits to help cover the costs of using AWS cloud services for the studios.
“Immutable is able to provide AWS cloud credits to game studios through AWS Activate, which offers Immutable customers up to $100k to cover cloud services.”
This strategic alignment positions Immutable at a unique vantage point to transform the gaming landscape. The platform’s ecosystem, already bustling with game studios and players, is further bolstered with the necessary infrastructure components and ecosystem partners to create a secure and dependable environment.
Immutable and AWS’s partnership is seemingly underpinned by a shared belief that blockchain technology can revolutionize the gaming industry by melding top-tier gaming technology with true digital asset ownership.
“We are also working on go-to-market programs to accelerate the onboarding of game studios to web3 and drive digital ownership to millions of gamers globally.”
Immutable’s ongoing collaboration with AWS, rooted in security, performance, proximity to users, and elasticity for developer environments, has created a serverless architecture, enabling the platform to scale effectively amid rapid growth.
Furthermore, Immutable has reported the ability to handle a tenfold increase in partnered games, signifying a marked improvement in the customer experience, anchored by increased security and over 99% uptime.
John Kearney, Head of Startups at Amazon Web Services, Australia and New Zealand, noted,
“Today, web3 gaming is one of the fastest-growing sub-sectors of the blockchain industry and is already enjoyed by millions of gamers worldwide.”
He added that AWS is “supercharging Immutable’s development by onboarding new game studios and providing them with resources through our flagship AWS Activate startup program and AWS’s ISV Accelerate Program, which give them the tools to accelerate their global launch.”
Looking forward: Immutable and Amazon.
Moving forward, Immutable plans to continue investing in its infrastructure, built on AWS, to support its upcoming offerings, such as Immutable zkEVM, effectively. With Ethereum compatibility, Immutable zkEVM aims to expand offerings and support to partners, enabling more developers to build web3 games without learning a new programming language.
Immutable is positioning itself as a one-stop-shop for game developers, providing all the necessary tools to build a successful web3 game. From player experience enhancements like Immutable Passport for instant wallet onboarding to revenue engines like Immutable Global Orderbook & Marketplace Network for maximizing asset distribution, Immutable offers a suite of integrated products for platform services hosted on AWS.
Epic Games, the company behind Fortnite, has slashed 16% of its workforce — approximately 830 staff — after unrealistic expectations of metaverse-inspired revenue caused it to spend “way more” money than it had been earning.
“We concluded that layoffs are the only way and that doing them now and on this scale will stabilize our finances,” wrote CEO Tim Sweeney in a Sept. 29 memo sent to Epic Games staff.
“I had long been optimistic that we could power through this transition without layoffs, but in retrospect, I see that this was unrealistic,” Sweeney added.
Epic Games have laid off 870 employees today across multiple departments, a whopping 16% of their workforce. Those laid off will receive 6 months severance
“For awhile now, we’ve been spending way more money than we earn, investing in the next evolution of Epic and Fortnite” pic.twitter.com/4W6Pn31CU3
— Jake Lucky (@JakeSucky) September 28, 2023
While Sweeney credited the company’s recent growth to the Fortnite Creator program, which allows players to build and sell their own content in-game for a 40% cut, the shift has resulted in lower margins.
“Success with the creator ecosystem is a great achievement, but it means a major structural change to our economics.”
Related: Play-to-earn games are the reason ‘real’ gamers hate crypto: Atari founder
In addition to the aforementioned layoffs, Sweeney said another 250 employees would also be leaving Epic Games, as the company announced it would be selling the recently acquired music website Bandcamp and spinning off its marketing company SuperAwesome, a child-safety tech firm that joined Epic in 2020.
Notably, soon-to-be-former employees of Epic Games will be offered six months of pay, and those residing in the United States, Canada and Brazil can expect six months of paid healthcare as well.
Aside from Fortnite, which boasts some 400 million registered users, Epic Games also runs the Unreal Engine. The video game development suite powers titles such as God of War and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.
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Magazine: Web3 Gamer: Minecraft bans Bitcoin P2E, iPhone 15 & crypto gaming, Formula E
NHN said it chose the Sui blockchain for its crypto game development thanks to its low transaction fees, fast processing time, and high scalability.
South Korean mobile game developer NHN has joined the crypto bandwagon through a partnership with Mysten Labs, the owner of the Sui blockchain, to develop games for players in the industry.
In an official press release dated September 21, the company’s gaming division announced its expansion into the Web3 ecosystem, joining the ranks of South Korean gaming companies such as Krafton, Com2us, Wemade, Nexon, Neowiz, NCSoft, and OneUniverse, all of which have embraced blockchain technology in game development.
NHN to Venture into Crypto Games
NHN, a globally recognized IT company and one of the leading developers of casino games in the APAC region, boasts a rich history of success in the gaming industry. With deep expertise in creating engaging gaming experiences and retaining users, the company has developed popular titles in the Web2 ecosystem, including Hangame Poker and Crusaders Quest.
Furthermore, the mobile game developer has cultivated a substantial user base of approximately 37 million players across various gaming platforms on mobile and desktop devices.
Building on this foundation, the South Korean company is now venturing into the crypto gaming realm to cater to a growing Web3 audience.
NHN to Introduce NFTs as In-Game Rewards for Players
As part of its Web3 strategy, the South Korean company will leverage the Sui blockchain to develop new games that will introduce non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and crypto tokens designed specifically for these games.
While the precise details of how NHN plans to integrate NFTs and crypto tokens are still being finalized, Jine Lee, the company’s head of business development, hinted at the possibility of enabling gamers to trade in-game items such as NFTs and introducing crypto token-based rewards.
Ujin Chung, the CEO of NHN Corporation, described the company’s motivation for entering into the emerging economy as a “paradigm shift” in the gaming industry. He also emphasized the company’s aim to merge the inherent value of game content with the in-game economy through the concept of tokenomics.
“Up to this point, there has been a lack of synergy between web3 and gaming. This synergy will be driven by growth and sustainability, the kind of which is best served by the minds who honed this skill in web2 and have a proven track record of success in creating experiences that users enjoy,” said Chung.
Low Transaction Fees and High Scalability
NHN said it chose the Sui blockchain for its crypto game development thanks to its low transaction fees, fast processing time, and high scalability. CEO Chung revealed that the network stood out for the company due to its expertise and the innovative capabilities of Sui.
The protocol, launched by Mysten Labs in May 2023, is built on an object-centric model based on the Move programming language, enabling parallel execution, sub-second finality, and rich on-chain assets.
Commenting on the partnership with NHN, Mysten Labs CEO Evan Cheng said that the company aims to create products that attract a substantial user base and make Web3 accessible to billions of users worldwide.
“What excites me about building with NHN is what we’re beginning to refer to as ‘stickiness’ for users. It’s a code web3, which has not cracked with daily active users on the most popular chains barely topping 300K. At Mysten Labs, our mission is to bring the benefits of web3 to the masses by the billions,” said he.
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Chimamanda is a crypto enthusiast and experienced writer focusing on the dynamic world of cryptocurrencies. She joined the industry in 2019 and has since developed an interest in the emerging economy. She combines her passion for blockchain technology with her love for travel and food, bringing a fresh and engaging perspective to her work.
Apart from setting the bar with the first-of-its-kind solution, Telescope Labs boasts the plugin’s integration with artificial intelligence for advanced real-time analysis.
Launched in 2022, data analytics startup Telescope Labs has launched an advanced tool for analyzing and grading web3 games. The company provides support for web3 gaming outfits and uses predictive models and machine learning to cater to users. According to an official announcement on July 4th, the newly-unveiled plugin is powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4. The tool is a unique solution that utilizes AI to access thousands of web3 games.
Telescope Labs Rolls Out AI Tool for Analyzing and Grading Web3 Games
Telescope Labs deploying the advanced reasoning abilities of GPT-4 means that the new tool for analyzing and grading web3 grams goes beyond the traditional analysis tools. It will help its users conduct daily analyses and compare the growth performance of multiple games. In addition, the Telescope Labs web3 game analytics powered by GPT-4 can be used to predict future trends.
Following the launch, users of the Telescope Labs tool can use it for grading and analyzing over 2,000 web3 games. Also, there are 37 distinct Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) available to them to make smarter choices. The KPIs have been optimized for web3 and are accessible to all users.
The CEO and co-founder of Telescope Labs, Semih Gilan, is excited about the announcement of the grading tool. He added that “the plugin’s blend of voluminous and varied data, sophisticated reasoning, user-friendliness, and real-time responsiveness is a game-changer for web3 gaming and blockchain.”
Notably, the plugin is the first-of-its-kind solution, and this means that Telescope Labs has set a standard for future developments. Already, OpenAI disrupted the markets with its ChatGPT before releasing GPT-4 months ago. Since its release on March 14th, 2023, the latest version of OpenAI’s multimodal larger language model has caught the attention of many companies like Telescope Labs. With Telescope Labs launching a GPT-4-backed web3 games grading tool, there will be a higher understanding of web3 gaming and blockchain game analysis.
Telescope Labs Sets Bar for Future Developments
Telescope Labs spoke about the push behind the development of the grading tool. The data analytics startup said the plugin is responding to the blockchain gaming industry’s call for advanced analysis tools. It added that blockchain gaming community members have been demanding user-friendly data analysis tools. Hence, the unveiling of the plugin.
Apart from setting the bar with the first-of-its-kind solution, Telescope Labs boasts the plugin’s integration with artificial intelligence for advanced real-time analysis. It also said the tool is easy to use and sets the benchmark regarding data access.
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Ibukun is a crypto/finance writer interested in passing relevant information, using non-complex words to reach all kinds of audience.
Apart from writing, she likes to see movies, cook, and explore restaurants in the city of Lagos, where she resides.