Decentraland’s District X is facing a dispute between the community and the district leader, which has prompted the Decentraland DAO to intervene. The adult content-themed district has not seen much development since it was established five years ago, and community member Morph believes that the district custodian, RobL, has taken control without the input of contributors. Morph alleges that RobL’s LLC, District X Land Holdings, controls the multisig wallet holding the district’s land, and has attempted to sell the entire district. Morph’s proposal seeks to ask OpenSea to mark the district’s land NFTs as stolen until a solution is found, and has so far received support from 73.94% of voting power. However, RobL denies the allegations and believes the proposal is filled with misinformation. The Decentraland Foundation is not currently involved in the matter and says it is an external party to the situation.
Gunzilla Games, an indie studio, is launching its first title Off The Grid, a cyberpunk-style battle royale third-person shooter set on the fictional Teardrop Island in the Pacific Ocean where corporations battle for resources. Neill Blomkamp, the director of District 9 and Elysium, is on board as chief visionary officer and is helping to turn the game into an interactive, player-driven movie. Gunzilla Games co-founder Vlad Korolov says that unlike other battle royale games, Off The Grid has a narrative-driven element and is not solely focused on shooting. The game will be free-to-play and regularly updated with in-game items for players to collect, and will be available on Xbox, PlayStation, and PC. The game runs on Avalanche subnet Gunz blockchain, but the aim is to make the experience for future players feel as familiar as any other traditional game on consoles.
Vulcan Forged is taking action against autoclickers who are using its in-game foraging system to gain rewards and cryptocurrencies. Autoclickers, which mimic mouse clicks, can alter tokenomics in a game and affect the balance of the game itself. Games that offer daily rewards and other incentives are particularly vulnerable to bots, which can adapt quickly and cause issues for game studios. Blocking IP addresses or adding captcha verifications can help to prevent their use, but developers continue to fight against bots. Pedro Herrera, head of research and analytics at DappRadar, believes that as Web3 games become more complex and intricate, we are likely to see fewer bots.
Aurory’s new game, Adventures, is being rolled out next week after the successful release of its first game, Tactics, last November. In Adventures, players can capture creatures known as “Nefties” by battling them in different terrains. Aurory head of production and executive producer Jonathan Campeau describes the game as “Pokemon meets The Matrix for the Roblox generation”. Adventures is expected to appeal to a broader range of gamers than Tactics and will be fully launched to the public by the end of summer.
NFT Worlds has announced a rebrand after a challenging year that began with Mojang Studios, the creators of Minecraft, stating they would not allow NFTs or other blockchain tech on their servers. NFT Worlds, which had built its entire gaming system on Minecraft, was forced to pivot to its own game engine. NFT Worlds believes Minecraft has lost its innovative spark since being acquired by Microsoft, and plans to create a better alternative that will allow for Web3 integrations and user-created servers and mods. ArkDev, the team behind NFT Worlds, is enthusiastic about the prospect of the company becoming the replacement for Minecraft in 10 years’ time.