PUBG meets Cosmos
Krafton, the company behind PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG), is venturing into Web3 with Settlus, a Cosmos-based blockchain project specifically designed for the creator economy. Settlus aims to provide content creators with a payment platform that streamlines transparent settlement processes.
The South Korean gaming giant’s project was announced at the Korea Blockchain Week’s Circle Hacker House event, co-presented by Circle and AngelHack. Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire highlighted PUBG’s large user base of 30 million monthly active users.
Cosmos’ software development kit will serve as the framework, and network gas fees will be payable using stablecoins.
A metaverse project by the name of Migaloo is also in the works. The project will center around user-generated content, allowing creators to automatically create nonfungible tokens of their digital content and earn royalties from platform sales.
Krafton previously announced a collaboration with Solana Labs in March 2022 to “support the design and marketing of blockchain-based games and services,” but no Web3 products have been released since. Settlus’ testnet is scheduled to launch in early 2024.
Who’s after players’ wallets: Web3 games or big publishers?
Web3 games may be marketed toward the allure of monetary gain, as most of the demographic is made of investors and financiers who wish to get something in return. Traditional gaming is doing the same. The only difference is that, in Web2 gaming, it’s the company and its shareholders getting all the revenue instead of the ecosystem. Free-to-play multiplayer online game League of Legends generated $1.75 billion in revenue for Riot Games in 2020 — mostly from cosmetic skin sales.
For a free-to-play game, earning money through cosmetics can be understandable. But what about games that charge players the full premium?
Soccer franchise FIFA’s Ultimate Team mode, which allows users to buy card packs that contain footballers they…
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