Epic Games

Fortnite developer supports Animoca subsidiary’s blockchain racing game

The indie games subsidiary has just received support from Epic Games for its upcoming blockchain-powered P2E racing game Torque Drift 2.

Australian indie game developer Grease Monkey Games, a subsidiary of Animoca Brands, has received financial support from video-game giant Epic Games to develop a new blockchain-based motorsport game Torque Drift 2.

Receiving an Epic MegaGrant from the Fortnite developers, the funding will be used to develop the motorsport title, which is based on drifting. The Unreal Engine is a 3D computer graphics game engine developed by Epic Games, which has been used in many industries after it was first showcased in the 1998 game Unreal. 

According to a Thursday announcement from Animoca Brands, the Epic MegaGrant, which ranges from  $5,000 to as much as $500,000, will be used to develop a realistic gaming experience that is on par with other triple-A games that also utilize the Unreal Engine. 

Considering that Grease Monkey Games is developing a play-to-earn (P2E) game, the Epic Games grant represents a notable show of support from the traditional gaming sector, something which has often been at odds with blockchain gaming.

Torque Drift 2 is an upcoming drifting motorsport game with a tuning garage available to players from Q3 2022 and a full release date set for 2024. The game will utilize nonfungible token (NFT) parts, cars, decals and items that players can use to build up their car and profile.

Players will also be able to create their own paint job and car tune NFTs, which can then be shared and sold within the Torque Drift 2 marketplace.

Grease Monkey Games is a traditional game developer that has been publishing original IP games since 2014, which have over 45 million global downloads. They were acquired by Animoca Brands in February 2022 and Animoca will support them as they transition to blockchain games.

Unlike traditional games, where players generally buy in-game items with real money but are then prevented from pulling that money back out, incorporating blockchain verifiable NFTs into games is seen as a way to provide digital ownership over in-game content. As such, it enables players to sell items when they are done playing the game or want to exchange their items for new ones.

This type of model is often referred to as P2E, with players being rewarded with economic value for participating within the ecosystem.

Related: NFT games have edge over ‘money in, no money out’ games: Polygon’s Urvit Goel

Many critics of P2E games such as Udi Wertheimer point out that these games require wallets and cryptocurrency purchases before players can start playing and are not as fun as traditional games.

Other critics such as Minecraft developer Mojang Studios have pointed to the implementation of NFT’s within games as a tool for speculative pricing, which encourages profiteering over game playability.

Animoca Brands, on the other hand, has been a prolific investor in blockchain-enabled games, with a portfolio that includes The Sandbox, Axie Infinity, and Phantom Galaxies. The co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands, Yat Sui, is a huge proponent of digital property rights and believes it represents a paradigm shift toward a more decentralized society.


Epic Games ‘definitely won’t’ follow Minecraft NFT ban

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has said that the firm will not ban NFTs, as devs “should be free to decide how to build their games.”

Epic Games founder and CEO Tim Sweeney says his firm “definitely won’t” follow Minecraft’s developers in banning non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

As previously reported, Minecraft developers Mojang Studios banned NFT integrations on July 20 as it believes the speculative aspect of NFTs, along with scarcity and risks of exclusion and scams supposedly associated with NFTs being against the game’s principles.

The move was seen as highly controversial in the NFT community, while it has been met with praise by the cohort of crypto-skeptic gamers.

Sweeney’s company is the creators of the widely successful battle royal game Fortnite, which is also seen as a Metaverse platform. While Epic Games isn’t necessarily pro-crypto or NFTs, the CEO said the firm isn’t looking to enforce any views on the subject on its users:

“Developers should be free to decide how to build their games, and you are free to decide whether to play them. I believe stores and operating system makers shouldn’t interfere by forcing their views onto others. We definitely won’t.”

In response to the post, Twitter user @Low5ive asked Sweeney Epic Games’ policy on prohibiting “hateful/discriminatory content” differs from this. In response, Sweeney suggested that Epic Games does make “editorial” judgements, but NFTs don’t currently fall under them.

“A store could choose to make no such judgments and host anything that’s legal, or choose to draw the line at mainstream acceptable norms as we do, or accept only games that conform to the owner’s personal beliefs,” he said.

The NFT ban by Mojang Studios has left one particular project dubbed “NFT Worlds” with a major problem to solve, given that it was built on one of Minecraft’s open source servers.

Related: Delphi Digital: How to get gamers to accept the integration of NFTs

The community driven play-to-earn (P2E) platform has an entire crypto and NFT ecosystem built around it, with its NFTs generating 51,000 Ether (ETH), or $80.8 million worth of trading volume to date. However, since the news dropped, the floor price of its NFTs has dropped from 3.33 ETH to 1.01 ETH at the time of writing, while its native token WRLD has plunged by 55% within that time frame.

After the Mojang announcement, the NFT Worlds team stated it is now “brainstorming solutions” on how to move forward. The team mentioned that it is working to get in contact with Minecraft to see if a possible solution can be found, otherwise a pivot to a “Minecraft-like game engine” or GameFi platform has been outlined as possible options.


Epic Games ‘definitely won’t’ follow Minecraft NFT ban

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has said that the firm will not ban NFTs, as devs “should be free to decide how to build their games.”

Epic Games founder and CEO Tim Sweeney says his firm “definitely won’t” follow Minecraft developers in banning nonfungible tokens (NFTs).

As previously reported, Minecraft developers Mojang Studios banned NFT integrations on Wednesday, as it believes the speculative aspect of NFTs along with scarcity and risks of exclusion and scams supposedly associated with NFTs being against the game’s principles.

The move was seen as highly controversial in the NFT community, while it has been met with praise by the cohort of crypto-skeptic gamers.

Sweeney’s company is the creators of the widely successful battle royal game Fortnite, which is also seen as a Metaverse platform. While Epic Games isn’t necessarily pro-crypto or NFTs, the CEO said the firm isn’t looking to enforce any views on the subject on its users:

“Developers should be free to decide how to build their games, and you are free to decide whether to play them. I believe stores and operating system makers shouldn’t interfere by forcing their views onto others. We definitely won’t.”

In response to the post, Twitter user Low5ive asked Sweeney if Epic Games’ policy on prohibiting “hateful/discriminatory content” differs from this. In response, Sweeney suggested that Epic Games does make “editorial” judgments, but NFTs don’t currently fall under them.

“A store could choose to make no such judgments and host anything that’s legal, or choose to draw the line at mainstream acceptable norms as we do, or accept only games that conform to the owner’s personal beliefs,” he said.

The NFT ban by Mojang Studios has left one particular project dubbed NFT Worlds with a major problem to solve, given that it was built on one of Minecraft’s open source servers.

Related: Delphi Digital: How to get gamers to accept the integration of NFTs

The community-driven play-to-earn (P2E) platform has an entire crypto and NFT ecosystem built around it, with its NFTs generating 51,000 Ether (ETH), or $80.8 million worth of trading volume at the time of writing. Since the news dropped, however, the floor price of its NFTs has dropped from 3.33 ETH to 1.01 ETH at the time of writing, while its native token WRLD has plunged by 55% within that time frame.

After the Mojang announcement, the NFT Worlds team stated it is now “brainstorming solutions” on how to move forward. The team mentioned that it is working to get in contact with Minecraft to see if a possible solution can be found. Otherwise, a pivot to a “Minecraft-like game engine” or GameFi platform has been outlined as possible options.