GTA 6 Crypto Rumors, Dr Who/Sandbox, Thai Tourist NFT’s Review – Cointelegraph Magazine

Grand Theft Auto VI Crypto Rumors

Rumors that the upcoming Grand Theft Auto VI (GTA 6) will include cryptocurrency and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have resurfaced, sparking speculation among fans.

Posts shared on Twitter suggest that GTA 6 will be a game to earn money and that in-game items such as cars and weapons will be NFTs.

GTA creators Rockstar Games have yet to weigh in on whether there is any truth to these claims, but there appears to be little solid evidence to support the rumours.

The company cracked down on the use of crypto in GTA last November, sending cease and desist letters to companies running public servers with blockchain integrations – a blow to several game makers who had built their games on the platform.

Given that GTA 5, released in 2015, has sold over 180 million copies and generated a staggering $8 billion in revenue, it seems unlikely that Rockstar will drastically change the successful formula of the franchise, the last installment of which is expected next year or in 2025 .

Of course it could be a crypto element, but not necessarily what crypto bros want. Game Rant suggests that it’s more likely for Rockstar Games to use crypto as the butt of their in-game jokes.

Doctor Who, Top Gear join The Sandbox

Sci-fi series Doctor Who and British motoring show Top Gear, both popular BBC series, will enter the metaverse via The Sandbox after announcing a partnership with the virtual world platform.

In collaboration with the Web3 company Reality+, is set to launch the space later this year.

Nicki Sheard, President Brands & Licensing, BBC Studios believes that while the metaverse is still in its infancy, it could shape how we consume and experience entertainment in the future.

“I’m looking forward to seeing how fans interact with our brands in this space. This project is part of BBC Studios’ wider ambitious plans to extend our brands into new categories, with innovative technology and platforms forming an integral part of this, she said.

BBC Studios, which is a commercial production company under the BBC umbrella, will join 400 other entertainment brands that The Sandbox has worked with, including Warner Music Group, Ubisoft, Gucci, The Walking Dead and Adidas.

STEPN integrates Apple Pay for its NFTs

Move-to-earn app STEPN is making it easier to buy NFTs for its game by adding an Apple Pay payment option to the app.

Users will be able to purchase SPARK credits using fiat, with ten spark credits equaling 1 USDC, which can then be used to purchase the NFTs.

“It eliminates the need to connect to a separate crypto wallet and streamlines the payment process, making it easier than ever for our community to access our offerings,” STEPN said on Medium.

The catch is that buying sneakers with fiat will be more expensive, which STEPN attributes to the “tax” on each in-app purchase.

Onboarding has long been a challenge for wider adoption of Web3 games, and STEPN is no exception. The onboarding process is cumbersome, requiring users to purchase the sneaker NFTs – figuring out which one is best for you is a task and a half – from a third-party marketplace and transfer it to the wallet app.

But the company may have more going on when it comes to making onboarding easier.

“Our integration with Apple Pay is just the beginning of our vision to make Web3 technology accessible to everyone,” it added.

Battle of Titans developer competition returns for second season

MatchboxDAO is bringing back its Battle of Titans Web3 racing game for a second season this week.

Launching on Sunday, development teams from over 60 Web3 companies, including Immutable, Starknet and Fantom, will compete in an entirely chain-based Mario Kart-Style game.

Each car is a smart contract that must be programmed to get to the end of the track while taking into account attacking and defending against other players using bananas, shells and shields.

The first edition of the game in January included teams from Ledger, Polygon, NEAR, Yield Guild Games and more, with a development team from Uniswap emerging as the winners.

The new season will also add a community component where viewers will be able to vote for their favorite team.

Captain Tsubasa Web3 Game Debuts Governance Token

Captain Tsubasa — Rivals, a soccer game based on the popular manga Captain Tsubasa, has launched a board game.

Web3 companies Thirdverse Group and BLOCKSMITH&Co debuted the game in January 2023. Players can train characters from the manga and play against each other in battles.

Game producer Shun Fujiyoshi, who currently heads BLOCKSMITH&Co, said that various mechanisms are in place to maintain the value of utility tokens.

“These measures include in-game spending points and mechanisms to control price fluctuations caused by speculative trading,” he said in a statement.

Created in 1981 by Yoichi Takahashi, 70 million copies of the original Captain Tsubasa manga have been sold in Japan alone. It has been translated into over 20 languages.

Illuvium raises another $10 million in funding

Crypto venture firm Framework Ventures has invested $10 million in game studio Illuvium, which will be used to accelerate the development of the Illuvium universe.

Australia-based Illuvium said the new funding would give them a comfortable runway through the launch of the open beta and beyond.

It plans an upcoming open beta with city builder Zero, monster hunter Overworld and autobattler Arena.

The company previously raised $5 million in a Framework Ventures-backed seed round in March 2021. It also raised $72 million during an NFT land sale last June.

Hot take: Collect NFTs for a small piece of Thai chicken

This edition I captured a Web3 project in the wild.

Queuing for tickets to go up MahaNakhon, Thailand’s tallest skyscraper, a poster on one side next to a coffee advertisement and an emergency defibrillator caught my eye: Amazing Thailand NFTs Season 2. Travel to earn amazing expat NFTs.

Easily persuaded, I downloaded the app.

In mid-April this year, the Tourism Administration of Thailand (TAT) launched the second round of NFTs for an NFT tourism project it is piloting. Using an app called YAK, tourists can check in at various locations around the country and in return receive a travel NFT.

PokemonGo for backpackers and passport stamp addicts sounds appealing. The reality is a bit more frustrating.

Crypto people won’t like how much personal information you have to enter to set up. Not just an email, but also your phone number and a one-time password.

The app and I disagreed several times about whether I was within the required radius of the sites I was visiting. While the MahaNakhon NFT was achieved without fuss, I obtained an NFT for Pattaya City and Phuket, although I didn’t go to either.

The idea is that you “earn” while traveling by getting discounts depending on how many NFTs you get. In many cases, getting the offer seems to require buying something else, such as getting two free pieces of chicken if you spend over 1,000 Thai baht ($29) at a restaurant – a tall order in a country where you can eat a good meal for a fifth of that.

In fact, many of the offers did not appear to be exclusive to the NFT app at all and were applicable without the app.

Now, apparently – although it didn’t say so on the poster – the game was only going to run until the end of April, so maybe all the good deals were gone, I can’t be sure.

But for me the biggest question was how to get the NFTs out of the app. They appear to be on a native chain of Thailand-based cryptocurrency platform Bitkub. As far as I could tell, moving them required creating a Bitkub account, which in turn required a Thai phone number to receive the one-time password.

Overall, it needed some tweaking, but I liked the concept of being able to collect POAPs for places I’ve visited as a tourist. The discounts were lame, but not really necessary: ​​if you actually got NFT equivalent to the place you visited, collecting for the sake of collecting would have been enough.

A revamped, global version would be nice.

Other stuff

— Gods Unchained unveiled a new roadmap on May 23. Among the plans are some for new game modes, a creator program, a soft launch for mobile and new card sets.

— Blockchain gaming platform Gala Games will launch a Web3 poker platform with PokerGO, with a beta to launch in June 2023.

— Game retailer GameStop will distribute Telos-based games on its upcoming Web3 game launch platform GameStop Playr.

— Gaming metaverse Star Atlas launched the latest version of its showroom on June 1 with new flyable ships, single-player ground racing and an updated dogfighting arena.

— Web3 game publisher Fenix ​​Games is teaming up with platform Immutable to help game studios by “curating, advising and publishing best-in-class live services to Immutable’s ecosystem of games.”

— Nike’s NFTs will begin to be integrated into EA Sports games, according to a statement from the company on June 1. No word yet on which titles.

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Callan Quinn

Callan Quinn is a British freelance journalist covering crypto and technology. She has worked as a business journalist in China, Great Britain, Somaliland and the Republic of Georgia. Previously, she was also NFT’s, gaming and metaverse reporter on The Block.