Fortnite Dev Epic says people like crypto games in their store

Enthusiasm for the blockchain is not as lively as it was before someone kidnapped Robot chicken co-creator Seth Green’s embarrassing, reportedly non-fungible tokenor before the last year of high-profile scams and monumental crashes. But Fortnite developer Epic says people like the crypto-based games that live in the store enough. Sometimes they even play these games, Epic Store Group General Manager Steve Allison says Axios.

Okay, that’s not the highest praise, but it could be worse for cryptocurrency-based games, Epic’s ugly duckling. There are currently five of them, including the free one to download role play Chain demonstration and Roblox-style Blanko’s Block Partywhich I noted exactly in September looks “terrible”. The latter, which was the first crypto game to hit the Epic Games Store, is “pretty well played,” Allison said, and seems to channel the same amount of lukewarm passion you’d have when talking about how cold it’s been lately . It hair It’s been a bit cold lately.

Core, which is described opaquely on Epic’s store as “a metaverse of free-to-play games and worlds to explore designed by a global community of creators,” is the one doing “pretty well” in terms of traffic, Allison said, and it’s also free to download. All these games make money by integrating NFT elements into the gameplay, often in the form of cosmetics or in-game currency. They work in the same way as traditional “pay to win” games, except those rooted in crypto, tend to be less attractive and fun or interesting and satisfactoryetc.

It’s easy to lower the bar when you’re already in too deep. Valve banned NFT games on Steam in 2021and Epic decided to make it official with crypto in 2022. The developer is now determined to be faithful, planning to deploy nearly 20 additional crypto-supported games through the start of 2024. Elsewhere in gaming, The Pokémon Company is also planning its crypto. ventures, post a job ad that requires “deep knowledge and understanding of Web 3” just last week.

And you know, there’s another side to this. “Let’s just be honest about what really happened there,” Epic founder Tim Sweeney told me Axios about other online marketplaces’ crypto bans. “The other stores don’t block crypto games because they think “crypto” equals “bad”, proven by the fact that these stores “distribute all kinds of bad stuff” anyway.

“They only want to collect 30% fees, and they block anyone who doesn’t agree,” he said. Fair enough.