CCP Games has raised $40 million to develop a Web3 game in its EVE Online universe, integrating blockchain technology and smart contracts. The new game will be a standalone title with attention paid to third-party development and data persistence. It is unclear if the game will interact with public blockchain networks like Ethereum. Epic Games is also looking to launch nearly 20 third-party, crypto-enabled games on its online store over the next year, although none will be developed or published by Epic itself. The potential for blockchain and NFTs to revolutionize the gaming industry is enormous, and the emergence of big names like CCP Games and Epic Games into the Web3 gaming space marks a significant shift in the industry, with more innovative and creative games likely to emerge in the future. Read more: https://nftnewstoday.com/2023/03/24/ccp-games-40-million-for-blockchain-game/

Global beauty brand L'Oréal has partnered with Web3 event platform RLTY to host a metaverse competition called Brandstorm, aimed at students and tech innovators under 30. This year's theme is "cracking the new codes of beauty," and participants must come up with augmented beauty projects using VR, AI technology, and other Web3 tools. Winners will receive advisory sessions with L'Oréal's experts, access to Salesforce's e-learning platform, an official certification, and a breakdown of their ideas with L'Oréal's team. The competition's French semi-finals are on March 16. L'Oréal's Talent Acquisition Director Stefanie Messner said the Brandstorm competition "aims to upskill and develop youth globally, becoming such a career booster for all participants," while RLTY offers a proprietary 3D environment solution for metaverse events. Read more: https://nftevening.com/loreals-brandstorm-competition-brings-you-to-the-metaverse/

NFT trading in virtual worlds reached $311 million in Q1 2023, with virtual land trading hitting an all-time high of 147,000 trades, driven by platforms such as Yuga Labs’ Otherside and MG Land. The report noted a 237% increase in trading volume for Otherdeed NFTs linked to land in Otherside, reaching $222 million, including one sale for $2.85 million. Other virtual world dapps that made the list of top dapps included The Sandbox, Axie Infinity, and Decentraland, with Createra Genesis Land topping the list with $14 million in trading volume backed by a $10 million funding round from A16z. Read more: https://nftnewspro.com/first-quarter-2023-nft-trading-volume-reaches-311m/

The IRS has released proposed rules for the taxation of NFT assets, which will treat NFTs as collectibles such as fine wine, art or stamps. The IRS has requested public feedback on the proposed rules, with NFTs set to be taxed according to the underlying assets they denote digital ownership of. For instance, an NFT purchased on the Pixelplex Opalverse marketplace would be taxed as if the purchaser had directly bought the underlying Australian opal. However, some have raised concerns that the new rules could leave NFT investors in older age brackets exposed to significant taxation in retirement accounts, since collectibles generally do not have as advantageous capital-gains tax treatment as other capital assets. The public comment period is open until June 19, with finalization of the NFT tax proposals expected after that. Read more: https://cryptonews.com/news/irs-considers-treating-nfts-as-taxable-collectibles-raising-concerns-for-digital-asset-owners.htm

Oncyber, a metaverse platform, has introduced an AI-powered tool called Magic Composer to help users personalize their 3D environments. Using OpenAI's ChatGPT 3.5 language model, users can enter any Oncyber metaverse and type a text prompt to create upgrades to their environment without coding skills. The tool enables users to add top NFTs, landscapes, NFT galleries, and more to their metaverse surroundings. Oncyber showcased the feature in a trailer, where typing "Add all artworks by Terrell Jones" created a virtual NFT gallery. The use of AI in the metaverse sector is in its early stages, but it is already being explored by top Web3 brands. Alethea AI, for instance, launched a dApp called CharacterGPT in January, allowing users to create NFTs using AI tech to generate a fully-interactive character based on a simple text prompt. Oncyber's Magic Composer tool demonstrates how AI tech can contribute to how users interact, create, and play within the metaverse. Read more: https://nftevening.com/oncybers-ai-powered-tool-lets-users-customize-metaverse-with-ease/

French luxury fashion house, Balmain, has released a limited series of NFT sneakers based on its Unicorn shoe line. The Unicorn Phygital Wearable Collection includes 130 Unicorn sneaker NFTs packaged with identical physical counterparts. Each pair costs between $1595 and $2095 in fiat currency or ETH. The Ethereum NFTs were made in partnership with Space Runners, a digital fashion firm backed by investors like Pantera, Polychain, Jump Capital, and Animoca Brands’ Yat Siu. Holders of Balmain Unicorn NFTs will receive rare physical sneakers, early access to upcoming Balmain releases and other exclusive Balmain products, as well as digital wearables for online games and metaverse platforms. This is the latest Web3 project from Balmain, which has been actively exploring partnerships, membership programs, and limited edition drops that use blockchain technology over the past year. The sale has begun. Read more: https://nftnewspro.com/luxury-fashion-house-balmain-drops-limited-nft-sneaker-collection/

Nexon, one of the biggest game publishers in Asia, has announced the creation of a new Web3 game called MapleStory Universe, which is based on its popular 2D role-playing franchise. The game will be launched on a private Supernet on Polygon, an Ethereum scaling network. The Supernet will enable Nexon to have its own “dedicated app chain”, providing more customization options for creators, while insulating decentralized apps (dapps) and games from potential performance issues on the broader public network. MapleStory Universe is an NFT-centric game, meaning that tokenized assets will play a major role in the game itself and can be traded or transferred via the game’s marketplace. The game will also eventually have its own crypto token. Polygon Labs VP, Global Games and Platform Business Development, Urvit Goel, revealed that Korea has been leading the way from a developer standpoint, with eight out of 10 of the top gaming companies in Korea building something on the blockchain. Read more: https://decrypt.co/124144/gaming-giant-nexon-taps-polygon-nft-game-maplestory-universe

Magic Eden, the largest Solana NFT exchange, has announced its support for Bitcoin Ordinals. This means the platform can support Ordinals assets on Bitcoin, allowing users to digitally imprint media and text, despite the lack of infrastructure for Ordinals on Bitcoin compared to Ethereum and Solana. The marketplace experience will be similar to what users are used to on Magic Eden. The Ordinals marketplace currently sells digital assets on the secondary market, but it plans to offer tools for minting them on the Bitcoin blockchain. It is unclear if it will use Solana’s minting launchpad or auctions. Read more: https://nftnewspro.com/magic-eden-expands-to-support-bitcoin-ordinals/

Experienced Web3 builders use data to understand their community and product lifecycle. Read more here: https://www.footprint.network/article/case-study-how-animoca-used-data-to-launch-the-mocaverse-5xdoM0NT

Improving gameplay to increase retention is easier said than done, but on-chain data can help developers understand their users and how they participate in Web3. Read more here: https://www.footprint.network/article/gamefi-growth-how-to-keep-player-retention-AEezq3df