Pixel Gun Pc Crossplay
Lee Lucario
Arc System Works has announced that their 2D fighter Guilty Gear Strive is now available on Xbox Game Pass, Xbox Series XS, Xbox One, and Windows PC. In addition, fans can experience crossplay between PlayStation, PC, and Xbox, too, allowing anyone to play together regardless of which platform they own the game on.
Guilty Gear: Strive is the newest entry in the Guilty Gear series. The game was created by Daisuke Ishiwatari and developed by Arc System Works to bring a hybrid 2D/3D fighter to fans. The game is known for its high difficulty and beautiful combo systems where players can master characters to cause severe damage.
The versions are pretty different, for instance Switch Ark uses the old Kibble chart & with maps & additional DLC absent on the Switch version, there are engrams, resources & creatures missing. If PVP was your thing the other consoles also have a better draw distance so you couldnt "see" as far with the Switch version. Frame rate is slower as well. It also frequently has the "grass to glass" glitch, that- while it eventually leads to a crash and lends itself to the Switch being the most unstable version out there- negates any ability to hide in the environment....this applies to bases as well as characters. Switch players, with the game operating as is, would be a a significant disadvantage when playing with other consoles
I feel like there is a significant amount of work to be done improving the Switch version of Ark before this would be even a remote possibility let alone enjoyable....that's assuming it can even be done. Maybe pixel ark would be a better bet for crossplay assuming it would actually be supported. I know Minecraft supports crossplay & it looks to be a similar experience with assets that look somewhat the same from one version to another.
It's tough in web3 gaming currently, but farming game Pixels has not only survived at a time when much of the game industry is making cuts, but has also effectively leveraged the web3 ecosystem for user acquisition.
Pixels was launched as a pre-alpha in 2022. It is a free-to-play, multiplayer farming and crafting game often compared to Stardew Valley. It combines a socially focused world with a mix of creative and economic tasks, incentivized with play-to-earn token elements to keep players engaged.
It also enabled players to start earning $BERRY by completing challenges and selling their gameplay-generated resources, enhancing the game's play-to-earn model and making it more appealing to its user base as well as to those on Ronin.
The Ronin migration was a resounding success. Within two days of going live on Ronin, Pixels saw a 10 times the increase in users, with over 50K daily active unique wallets (DAUWs). This surge in activity was not just from existing Ronin users; activity increased across the entire network from 20K to 70K DAUWs.
While Pixels CEO Luke Barwikowski estimates that around 40% of the DAUWs are bots, he also noted there were almost 5K VIP members paying approximately $10 per month for premium in-game features. The game also has a reputation system that can help mitigate the impact of bots on resources through trade limits.
Growth in many web3 games can also have an unfortunate side effect: inflation. The $BERRY token was averaging a 2% per day inflation rate (a whopping 1377 times the annual expansion of supply), which is manageable with untradable currencies, but it becomes problematic when they can be traded openly.
The second initiative was a play-to-airdrop 2.0 campaign for $PIXEL. The campaign ran for two weeks, targeting 8K players in addition to the 20K players who had received the 1.0 airdrop. The distribution would again use badges and game tasks to accumulate points for a leaderboard, but with increased scrutiny on potential bots before awarding the airdrop.
The success of Pixels was also mirrored in the performance of its token. When the $PIXEL token was launched on Binance in February, it quickly captured the market's attention, boasting an impressive 24-hour trading volume of over $500M and experiencing a significant appreciation.
A key element of Pixels' appeal is the balance it strikes between being a social platform and a game. The community aspect of web3 is particularly strong at the moment, bolstered by platforms like X, Discord, Telegram, and regional networks, especially within guilds.
Pixels offers a simple, browser-based 2D chat environment with a town center and various public and private spaces for socializing and farming. This setup encourages players to visit both types of spaces without forcing spontaneous grouping.
Furthermore, incorporating a daily cycle that involves energy gating and farming ensures that engaged players log in regularly, creating a social version of Farmville that Facebook never achieved. Socializing within the game has proven to be more effective for retaining players than Discord channels, especially since localized chats encourage more players to participate rather than just lurking on public channels.
Regarding the balance between gameplay and social interaction, the inclusion of NFT land serves both purposes rather than merely being a speculative investment. Owning land for farming and building personal spaces makes more sense than the speculative land sales seen in many metaverse projects.
The land in Pixels features various biomes and resources, along with diverse land shapes and features for aesthetic and functional choices, serving as both a progress indicator and a social status symbol.
It was no doubt a fair bit of work to make the migration (although Sky Mavis likely helped), but it was likely very cost-effective from a user acquisition standpoint. Instead of trying to market to players elsewhere, Pixels simply moved to where the players were, that had a strong chance of being receptive to the project. It also helps that being on Ronin reduced gas fees compared with Polygon, benefitting both the Pixels team and players.
Across web3 gaming, these airdrop events are catching on mostly due to the ability to drive activity across a larger number of players than are actually awarded, acting as much stronger motivational leverage than direct play-to-earn elements. With Pixels, specifically, there are also clear uses planned for the token, as the team is treating it as a tradable premium currency and has quickly made it the way to purchase VIP membership. The VIP membership also showed some thought toward monetization prior to the introduction of $PIXEL.
It has, however, shown the benefits of adapting a game to leverage its strengths, and of not being shy about admitting and fixing issues. It also highlights the current social core of web3 that contrasts the space with much of mobile and console gaming. And, lastly, as we see a new wave of web3 games emerge in the coming months and years, we expect the lessons learned from games like Pixels to have a noticeable impact.
Nefta's advertising network provides a privacy-compliant solution to the problems publishers and advertisers face, diminishing revenue and eCPMs from iOS users that opt-out through ATT. Nefta has devised an approach using first-party data to improve in-app advertising revenue.
Publishers integrate an SDK natively or via LevelPlay or Max mediation and add Nefta's game event taxonomy to gain greater insights into player behaviour. Nefta's platform observes these game events and usage patterns on an app-by-app basis and applies advanced machine learning and behavioural analytics to create profile groups. Nefta discovered that certain profile groups are more likely to click certain creatives resulting in greater audience engagement, ad interaction, and revenue growth.
At its heart, Warframe is a free-to-play action RPG/looter shooter where players command a Tenno, fitted with a Warframe to become a warrior-robot hybrid that feels like an absolute war machine. Players fight through short levels to gather items that help them unlock, upgrade, and customize new and existing Warframes.
Warframes are varied around combat and elemental themes, allowing players to use entirely different powers, weapons, and movement types. The play itself can be solo, co-op, PvP, and open world. And while there's narrative woven into its multiplanetary questing, crafting, and character progression and customization systems, the real allure for us lies in its seamless combat.
Warframe Mobile is a full parity port of its PC/console counterpart that includes over 10 years of incredible content from its massive and constantly evolving free-to-play sci-fi universe, and the ability to play along with over 70M players through full crossplay capabilities. It is free-to-play with microtransactions for item bundles, cosmetics, crafting timer skips, player marketplace trading, and more.
Warframe has a long history, and it is one of very few games that has been able to sustain its total player community and active player base over multiple years. This can clearly be seen in the Steam concurrents graph below.
In the face of declining annual revenues since 2019, slowing player base growth over time, and a three- to four-year co-development period for the mobile SKU, it makes sense that Warframe decided to go mobile 11 years after launch.
Disney Dreamlight Valley has added a new multiplayer feature alongside its official launch, but in its current state, there isn't much that players can do when multiplayer is active. Still, there is a lot to be said for the joy of being able to show off a decorated valley and home and enjoy playing the cozy game alongside friends and family. The new Valley Visits mechanic is still being worked on, so while many things about its current state are disappointing, they will hopefully be improved upon and corrected in upcoming updates.
Multiplayer in Disney Dreamlight Valley is called Valley Visits and was introduced as part of the free content update to the base game that occurred at the game's full release. Itdoes not require the purchase of the expansion DLC, but players will have to have gotten far enough in the story of the game to unlock Vanellope. Once unlocked, up to four people can connect over an online connection to enjoy spending time together in one Valley at the same time. Once there, they can explore and show off their outfits or just run around together.
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