Arweaving AI and web3
Basejump leaps
Mixing up our favorite technologies, US/UK outfit Basejump has announced its new technology Action; something it labels an “AI-powered gaming substrate”.
Basejump also revealed it has received an undisclosed amount of funding from Arweave-focused investor Community Labs.
As for Action, it will enable users to create content and games without code using AO, a web3 technology that plugs into Arweave’s blockchain storage. In this way, Basejump hopes to kickstart a decentralized sandbox platform of interoperable assets.
Basejump — which originally launched the Broadside NFT collection — has its avatar launch hub in alpha and hopes to launch more generally in early 2025.
AI 🧠
Reforged Labs is launching its new genAI Creative Engine for making mobile game ads into beta.
Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick told CNBC’s Squawk Box he doesn’t think genAI will make it “easier to make hits”.
Sequoia invested $21 million into Israeli startup DecartAI’s seed round. Its Oasis demo, which generates procedural Minecraft-trained experiences, is here.
Mike Verdu is Netflix’s first VP, GenAI for Games.
Disney has created the Office of Technology Enablement to coordinate the group’s use of AI and mixed reality across its various divisions.
NetEase says the AI voices in the closed alpha of Destiny: Rising are placeholder and will be replaced.
Culture 🎨
Roblox continues to tighten its rules for under-13s, with new parental controls. It’s also removed the ability for u13s to message outside of games.
Anti-Defamation League’s HateVision AI tool finds lots of hate on Steam, often Pepe. 🐸 And now a Democratic senator is demanding action.
Twitch faces revenue decline after antisemitism backlash, apparently.
A bug enabling overpowered PVP in Old School RuneScape launches ‘Explain yourself’ meme.
2003 PS2 title Piglet’s Big Gameis in high demand over Resident Evil comparison.
60% of Diablo IV players are using the new Spiritborn class. Other classes will get buffed to balance. Meanwhile Blizzard is offering all players juicy rewards to get back into the game.
Biz 👨💼
MTG has acquired Raid dev Plarium for $620 million, potentially rising to $820 million by 2028 with earn-outs. Last year, Plarium generated $613 million.
Capcom has announced open-world mobile RPG Monster Hunter Outlanders, which will be developed by Tencent studio TiMi (CoD:Mobile, Pokemon Unite).
Take-Two sells indie publishing unit Private Division because Take-Two is not a “long tail company”.
Amazon is making a TV show based on the Mass Effect IP.
While Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs move has completed filming, 10 years after it was announced, a proposed Splinter Cell movie has been canned. However, Netflix’s animated Splinter Cell: Deathwatch series was announced in September.
Legals ⚖️
Ubisoft is being sued in California for shutting down The Crew.
How Nintendo found a streamer linked to software piracy. He’s now being sued for $7.5 million. Meanwhile an analyst suggests its patent lawsuit against Palworld’s dev Pocketpair is existential.
Funding 💸
Singapore-based early stage game VC Play Ventures has announced its $140 million Gaming Fund III. It expects to make 20-25 investments with its first being AI-centric gaming outfit Beyond, which is working on fashion game Decor Society. Play now claims $450 million in AUM.
Saudi VC Merak Capital has launched its $80 million MENA-focused Excel By Merak accelerator, for local startups and relocations.
US dev Ruckus Games (ex-Gearbox) raised $19 million for a roster-based co-op shooter. The round was led by Krafton.
Ex-Supercell team Bit Odd raised $18 million for a quirky F2P mobile multiplayer action game. The round was led by Griffin.
US outfit Neon raised $14 million from to scale its platform enabling game devs to build direct-to-consumer stores.
Game outsourcing company Winking Studios — majority backed by Acer — raised $10 million with a dual listing on the London AIM exchange. Originally listed in Singapore, it now has $30 million in cash for M&A.
Canadian dev Starform (Metalstorm) raised $6 million.
Jobs 🏢
Is Blizzard hiring for an unannounced open-world shooter?
Around 300 QA testers — part of the ZeniMax Workers United union — are on strike claiming Microsoft has failed to address employee issues regarding remote work and outsourcing.
Workers at French developer Don’t Nod are on a strike called by the STJV union following the news that 69 staff could be made redundant.
InGame Job’s 2024 survey reckons 15% of its 1,832 respondents were laid off in 2024.
UK developer organization TIGA says the industry grew by 4.8% in the 12 months to May 2024. It reckons the UK games industry now employs over 28,500 people.
Tech 🤖
UK studio Facepunch has revealed the Steam Page for its new engine and sandbox UGC platform. Called s&box, it’s been built on a “highly modified” version of Valve’s Source 2 engine and programmed using C#.
Activision’s kernel level anti-cheat system Ricochet was hacked and used to get thousands of random players banned, although Activision also says Ricochet has intervened in over 582,000 Black Ops 6 matches to remove suspicious accounts before they could win.
Data 🔢
20 years on, an updated Half-Life 2 has hit a record 64,085 concurrent players.
Call of Duty: Mobile has been downloaded more than 1 billion times.
Cozy adventure Infinity Nikki has 30 million pre-registrations.
Roblox TikTok-like app Clip It has hit 100 million views in 6 weeks.
Nintendo’s $20/year Switch Online service has declined by 4 million accounts to 34 million. It has a 23% attach rate.
Pokémon TCG Pocket is now the #1 top grossing mobile game.
US kids are spending less time playing games — down to 16 hours a week — but watching more games — up to 10.1 hours a week.
“Context is that which is scarce…” 🤔
//Rebooting w3.v2…