New World Notes

Rockstar Vet Creating Everywhere, Another Possible "Roblox, But Not for Kids" Platform - Watch the Teaser!

Despite all the dune buggies in the teaser trailer, it's not There, but Everywhere. However, detailed information about it exists nowhere -- except, that is, in the studio of Build A Rocket Boy, founded former Rockstar North head Leslie Benzies. The montage video shows glimpses of many environments and some Fortnite-type combat, and from what a game industry reporter could glean, it's going to be a metaverse-ish platform of some kind: 

Breaking: Axie Infinity Lost 1 Million Daily Active Users In the Last 4 Months!

Above screengrab taken from the Axie Growth Data spreadsheet 

When we last checked in with Axie Infinity, widely touted as the model of "play-to-earn", NFT/blockchain-based games, it had dropped from 1.3 million daily active users in April to under 600,000 in June. That's a huge drop, but 600K DAU is still quite impressive, ranking it (for example) in the top 20 of Google Play mobile games by daily usage. 

Since then, however, DAU rates have continued plummeting -- from under 600K DAU at the beginning of June, to under 300K DAU as of yesterday. 

If you pull back the camera to April, 16 weeks ago, the drop in usage is even greater:

Dual Universe Releases Huge Update With New First-Time User Experience

Dual Universe, the single-shard MMO that some experts say is the best candidate to become the Metaverse, just announced a huge expansion to their beta release, code-named Mercury. (Teaser above.) That includes a new first-time user experience, so this long weekend is a good time to give it a try, or a revisit.

"Take time to explore the possibilities listed in the intro of the game," Nouredine Abboud, CEO at Dual Universe publisher Novaquark, advises. "This is a game like no other so let’s play it like no other."

Abboud, a game industry veteran from Ubisoft, took over the CEO role from founder J.C. Baille last year. And while Dual Universe is still in beta and has a relatively small active userbase, he tells me the most important signs of engagement are there:

Quintin Smith: Questions ROBLOX Still Hasn't Answered About Its Platform

The Washington Post recently ran this great article on the power and influence of the YouTube channel People Make Games, which ROBLOX reportedly "pressured" to make a retraction when it started looking into serious allegations about the metaverse platform. The Washington Post confirms that the company did request a retraction, and gets what People Make Games couldn't get, despite many tries -- an official reply from ROBLOX:

In a statement to The Post, Roblox’s Nevius characterized both of PMG’s videos as “not accurate,” saying they contain claims “in pursuit of clicks that downplay or outright ignore numerous features and parental controls we have in place to ensure our platform provides a safe, civil and welcoming space for people of all ages to play and connect.”

Nevius also pointed to parents’ ability to set in-game spending limits on their kids, as well as a “large, expertly trained” moderation team that targets scams and inappropriate content and “aggressively deters” users moving “Roblox”-related transactions to unsafe websites. He also said that, despite “Roblox’s” young audience, the “vast majority” of top-earning and most-played developers on the platform are over 18.

People Make Games' Quintin Smith (that's him on the couch up there), however, isn't satisficed with that answer, and told me why in great detail:

Watch: How BONELAB Could Become the Garry's Mod for VR

Via VR scout Adeon, here's a very good case from YouTuber ThrillSeeker to keep an eye (and a haptic finger in the wind) out for BONELAB, from indie studio Stress Level Zero, creator of the unexpected VR hit BONEWORKS from 2019. Like that game, BONELAB has highly responsive physics and avatar customization, with this new version compatible with the Quest 2 and its install base of some 11-12 million consumers. Even more intriguing, BONELAB's teaser trailer strongly suggests that player modding will be a major feature to the game after it rolls out. Or to put it another way: BONELAB could become the Garry's Mod for VR.

Teaser trailer and feature description below from the Steam page:

Buy a Bundle for Ukraine: Donate $10+ to NGOs Helping Ukrainians, Get 100s of Indie Games Including Acclaimed Titles SUPERHOT, CrossCode, Baba Is You -- $3M Raised Already!

Bundle for Ukraine is an epic sale of indie games with all proceeds benefiting the International Medical Corps in Ukraine and Voices of Children, a Ukrainian NGO which helps kids in the region. The Bundle comes with nearly 1000 games valued at $6520, all for a minimum donation of $10. (But you can and should pay much more than $10, of course.)

Click here to see the full list, which includes hits like the excellent bullet-time masterpiece SUPERHOT, and the critically acclaimed Baba is You.

About 14,000 People Watched Geoff Keighley's Game Awards in Geoff Keighley's World in Core

I told you about Core hosting a live in-world viewing of Geoff Keihley's Game Awards show which streamed last night, so here's a pretty good data point on user interest right now:

Based on the "total played" count of Axial Tilt (the Core experience where the show was streamed, which also has Geoff in the credits) about 14,000 people showed up for the Awards. (Only a few hundred had played before the show.) That's not too bad, given that Core probably has monthly active users in the mid six figures. It also suggests not many new people joined Core to watch the show from there, but that's not surprising, as gamers are already accustomed to watching it from their streaming option of choice.

Speaking of the Awards themselves:

Expensive Virtual Items for Worlds With Few Users: Pricey NFT "Metaverse" Sales Give Me Serious Entropia Universe Déjà Vu

Remember Entropia Universe, a niche MMO launched in 2003 where players can buy and sell in-game items for real cash? You'd only really read about it when there was a breathless report about another record Entropia Universe sale -- like this one, from 2010:

How much would you pay for a string of ones and zeroes? How about a string of ones and zeroes that grossed you $200,000 a year? Jon “Neverdie” Jacobs made history by selling virtual property for a reported total of $635,000. Club Neverdie is a virtual asteroid in the online game Entropia. 

... but despite all that money being spent on virtual items in Entropia, hardly anyone seemed to actually be playing Entropia -- then, or now. (Entropia currently counts less than 100,000 players, according to MMO Populations.)

That very same thing seems to be happening again, with a new NFT/Metaverse spin. For instance, most recently:

Free Fire: The Little-Known, Potential Metaverse Already Played by 1 in 10 People in the Entire World

Free Fire is a cross platform online battle royale game which on the surface, is largely dismissed by the Western game industry as yet another knockoff of PUBG and Fortnite. But AR/VR investor Julie Young has been looking much closer for well over a year (months before the current Metaverse buzz reached fever pitch), when she observed that the game, from Garena -- a game studio/publisher owned by massive Singapore-based conglomerate Sea Limited -- has the early makings of a metaverse:

In Brazil, they partnered with DJ Alok for a live set in Free Fire. In Colombia, they held an event where two of the country’s biggest soccer players hosted a live tournament for charity. These are perfect examples of Sea’s incredible agility and execution. But on a more philosophical level, they demonstrate that Garena could actually become more than just a very profitable gaming platform - perhaps Free Fire, down the road, will become a new type of platform altogether.

... and based on current user numbers, Free Fire is already well positioned to be The Metaverse, if it wants to become that. As she tweeted yesterday, reporting recent user numbers: "Free Fire has 700 million quarterly active users concentrated largely in some of the highest growth regions in the world (or as @nachkari pointed out today, 10% of the world plays the game quarterly."

Yes, nearly 1 in 10 of everyone across the entire earth already play Free Fire. And for purists who scoff at the idea of the Metaverse emerging from a casual combat game, it's worth remembering that Neal Stephenson's original Metaverse also had a heavy combat game component. 

I chatted with Julie a bit about Free Fire last night, and from that, my sense is that the platform is very much moving in the Fortnite Creative direction that Epic is taking, adding monetization mechanics for user creators. And the thing is, Free Fire has some considerable advantages against Epic -- namely eyeballs:

Guest Post: Why a Longtime Roleplayer Left Second Life For Fortnite Creative

Longtime urban fantasy author Victor Ziblis is -- or rather, was -- a longtime member of the Second Life roleplay community, who first joined the world to promote his novels. 

"[I]t was actually a marketing stunt suggested by my publicist," he tells me, "The advertising stunt went off pretty well, but I found Second Life to be so enjoyable that I stayed for over three years.  I remember Club Caribe/Habitat on Quantum Link, and this gave me the same feel except it was 3D." And so he stayed in Second Life, even becoming entrenched enough in the community that he was promoted director of medical services on a major collection of roleplay sims.

But he recently left Second Life, "because it occurred to me that I was spending a lot of money on a thing that wasn't really returning me with anything but an hour or three of roleplay a week, and mostly was just my character lounging around in front of his home.  I'm not trying to get laid, and clubbing is played out to me so what was the point of sticking around?"

Before completely leaving, however, he posted a long and passionate rant on /SecondLife cheerfully entitled "Fortnite is eating our lunch." And while I don't necessarily agree with it all, it's worth considering by other members of the SL roleplay community -- and for members of Linden Lab itself, as they consider how to better serve that community.

Reprinted with permission (with some editing by the author), here's Victor's rant in full below: