NFTs
Atari Launches Onchain Arcade on Base Network
The gaming giant appears unfazed by the recent downturn in the blockchain gaming sector, which fell 28% in June.
Video game giant Atari continues to experiment with blockchain technology by releasing its classic arcade games on Base, the Ethereum Layer 2 network developed by Coinbase.
Atari has in partnership with Coinbase to develop an “Onchain Arcade.” The collaboration also includes Stack, a Bitcoin Layer 2 scaling solution.
Players can mint, play and compete for leaderboard positions in the classic game Asteroids. Rewards include the Atari 2600+, merchandise and game codes. The leaderboard will reset every week, but the high score will remain until the competition ends on August 30.
According to Atari websiteplans to launch more on-chain games soon.
Founded in the early 1970s, Atari pioneered arcade games such as Pong, Asteroids, and Breakout. These games made Atari a staple in gaming culture for decades.
Illuvium to release three new games
Game studio Illuvium is set to launch three interconnected games on July 25. The upcoming titles — Illuvium: Overworld, Illuvium: Arena, and Illuvium: Zero — are part of a larger ecosystem.
Within this ecosystem, in-game progress and items can be transferred between different games. Every asset captured or created will be owned by players on the Ethereum blockchain.
Founded four years ago, Illuvium has raised $100 million in funding. However, its ILV token has been hit by the bear market and remains down 95% from its 2021 peak.
Web3 gaming sector falls in June
In June, the blockchain gaming sector felt the aftereffects of the broader cryptocurrency market crash.
According to Footprint According to analytics, Bitcoin and Ether fell 7.3% and 9.8% respectively in June, which had a notable impact on gaming tokens, with the sector plummeting 28% from $27.2 billion to $19.6 billion.
After migrating to the Ronin network, Web3 Pixels game faced a sharp 74% drop in daily active users (DAUs) to 251.6K on June 19 from 976.1K on June 11.
Meanwhile, network-specific metrics also paint a worrying picture. Ronin and Polygon, which were the leading chains by DAUs, witnessed notable declines.
Ronin’s DAU share dropped from 29.8% to 18.4% at the end of June, heavily influenced by Pixels’ drop in user engagement. Similarly, Polygon’s DAU share dropped from 15.1% to 8.0% due to a drop in Matr1x FIRE’s user activity.