GM Gamers,

It’s a good week for blockchain games, with some exciting Xbox news, some great market cap gains, and good news for unity devs.

So grab a coffee, settle in, and let’s see what’s been going on in gaming this week.

📈📉Gaming Tokens Making Moves

Digital Collectibles Market Movements: Would you look at that - RUNE is top of the charts! We have watched it move up these charts in the past month, and now, it has a higher MC than The Sandbox AND Decentraland. Plus, it’s a good week for gaming tokens overall, as all the top tokens have raised their MC % in the past 7 days.

🌚Full Moons - Xbox Embraces Crypto, Minecraft Bans It

Xbox Involves Crypto?

Microsoft has spilled the beans by accidentally sharing secret documents about the future of Xbox - and it looks like crypto is involved!

• The next-gen Xbox is set to release in 2028, according to the leaked docs. That’s a huge eight years since the last Xbox debuted!

• The docs show that Microsoft is cooking up some new tech for the gaming device, including "next-gen DirectX ray tracing" and "machine learning-based super resolution."

• The unveiled plans included a crypto wallet, intended as part of the console’s commerce stack.

So, should we believe the leaks? Well, Phil Spencer himself tweeted about the snafu, promising to reveal the real plans when they're good and ready. Until then, we'll be here, counting down the days until we can level up with Xbox's next-gen wonder.

Play Minecraft, Earn Nothing

Hey so remember last week when we reported that you could earn Bitcoin by playing Minecraft? Well, that was short lived. This week, Minecraft, known for its blocky adventures, laid down the law by putting a stop to play-to-earn schemes and NFT-gating escapades on fan-operated servers. This crackdown led to Mojang threatening a server that had the audacity to pay players in Bitcoin, and guess who's giving them a virtual high-five? Notch himself!

• Decrypt reported on the whole saga, and Notch (the game’s original creator) shared his delight on Twitter, giving a nod to Mojang's move.

• Meanwhile, a fan-operated Minecraft server, Satlantis, which dished out Bitcoin rewards to players for in-game tasks, found itself in hot water with Mojang. Facing the wrath of potential IP-blocking and cease-and-desist threats, Satlantis promptly dropped its Bitcoin rewards feature and hinted at taking the party to another gaming platform.

As the dust settles, Microsoft, the proud owner of Mojang and Minecraft, remains tight-lipped. Minecraft's recent rulebook updates explicitly forbid servers from letting players earn "real-world or out-of-game currency or in-game currency that can be cashed out for real-world currency." Plus, Minecraft finally slammed the door on NFTs restricting in-game features, a ban that had been chilling in the oven for nearly a year.

I guess I won’t be getting rich playing Minecraft anytime soon :’)

🔭The Scope

The Xbox news is certainly exciting, and this signals a bold move into the crypto sphere, potentially allowing users to manage digital assets alongside their virtual gaming treasures. While Minecraft continues to crack down on crypto, other gaming giants forge ahead to usher in a new era of gaming.

🌓Half Moons

- Proof of Play, a Web3 gaming startup led by Farmville's co-creator Amitt Mahajan, recently raised $33 million in funding. The funds will support the development of games diverging from the "play-to-earn" model. Mahajan, known for his work on Farmville, has assembled a team with experience at Epic Games, Zynga, EA, Activision, and Google from the traditional gaming sector.

- Unity has made significant changes to its Unity Runtime Fee policies after facing backlash from game developers. While the runtime fee remains, Unity is now offering developers options to mitigate or reduce costs. Unity Create President Marc Whitten issued an apology for not considering developer feedback before implementing the per-install fee model based on revenue thresholds.

- Not gaming, but frogs! We want to share the news of the upcoming Pepe Fest. Pepe Fest is a groundbreaking, inclusive festival celebrating the iconic character Pepe's influence on art, blockchain tech, and memes - including the infamous Official Fake Rares.

🔭The Scope

The news of funding and fees, though not too exciting, shows that gaming industry, both in traditional and Web3 spaces, is evolving and adapting to meet the demands and concerns of developers and players alike.

⚪ Total Eclipse

💫Shooting Star

This week’s feature is Tiny World

Tiny World is a blockchain game ecosystem, merging NFTs, DeFi, and gaming to deliver an immersive user experience. If you acquire more than 100 Tiny Hero NFTs then you can embark on an epic adventure, and even venture into dungeons for a rewarding play-to-earn adventure. Or, you could opt for an alternative income stream by staking your tokens and NFTs through the platform's DeFi offerings.

🌚 Dark Side of the Meme