As reports suggested last month, GameStop is getting into NFTs (non-fungible tokens). The company has partnered with Immutable X to build a marketplace for NFTs, which they expect to open up later this year. 

People will be able to buy and sell NFTs linked to digital assets for use in various games. The items will include things like virtual real estate, character skins and weapons, according to The Verge.

Immutable X is based on the Ethereum blockchain, which requires significant energy consumption and high gas fees (a cryptocurrency payment that's required to carry out an Ethereum transaction). The platform claims to diminish those drawbacks by combining many NFT sales into a single Ethereum transaction and buying carbon offsets. As such, Immutable X, whose partners include some blockchain games and TikTok, promises zero gas fees and carbon-neutral NFTs.

GameStop and Immutable X are hoping to entice game developers to use the marketplace with the help of a $100 million fund. Whether developers and studios will bite en masse remains to be seen.

For its annual State of the Game Industry Survey, the Game Developers Conference polled more than 2,700 devs. It found 70 percent of them and their studios were not interested in NFTs, while 72 percent had no interest in packing cryptocurrencies into their games. Around 28 percent said they were at least somewhat interested in NFTs.

Over the last few months, some studios, publishers and industry figures have announced NFT projects, only to abandon their plans after a significant backlash. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 developer GSC Game World, publisher Team17 and prominent game voice and motion-capture actor Troy Baker all backed out of their NFT schemes.

Ubisoft brought NFTs to one of its games for the first time in December, but it seems sales have been slow. Last week, an Ubisoft executive argued that, for gamers, being able to sell virtual items to others is "really beneficial. But they don't get it for now."

Time will tell whether GameStop’s latest endeavor, which follows its emergence as a popular meme stock last year, proves successful. The signs aren't looking promising for the marketplace, though. It's worth bearing in mind that the Steam marketplace has allowed players to buy and sell in-game items for many years without the shadow of NFTs looming over it.

NFTs are designed as public records of ownership of digital assets. The notion is that NFT holders own the asset (which include things like music, digital artworks and in-game items), though in reality the NFT is a verified URL that points to the file. The owner of the URL's destination can alter or delete the file in question. This week, artists claimed that HitPiece, which has since gone offline, was minting and selling NFTs of their music without permission.

The following contains minor spoilers for episode ten of 'Star Trek: Prodigy.'

One thing that’s become increasingly common among genre shows is the idea of the “mid-season finale,” where a program goes on hiatus for a bit, but not before shaking things up for the rest of the year. Even children’s shows like Star Trek: Prodigy can’t escape from this phenomenon, as the Paramount+ cartoon takes a break (again) after a huge two-parter with big changes for the characters and central conflict.

The first season has so far been a long chase between the escaped prisoners aboard the USS Protostar and their former captor, the Diviner. Last week’s cliffhanger forced the crew to surrender their ship to the Diviner in exchange for the lives of their fellow prisoners from the prison colony Tars Lamora, leaving them stranded on the Diviner’s sabotaged ship, the REV-12. But it turned out that our erstwhile teens had a plan to take their ship back, and this week’s installment sees that plan come to fruition. It’s an enjoyable, though largely unsurprising, adventure.

Nickelodeon

Where the show upends things is when it comes to our villain, whose mission is finally revealed to his daughter Gwyn and thus, the audience. And yes, it involves time travel. Most interesting of all is that the Diviner’s storyline is backburnered if not completely scuttled now, with the Protostar crew instead focused on getting to the Federation. And it was intended that way all along — these episodes were written over two years ago, before the pandemic started. In fact, showrunners Kevin and Dan Hageman revealed this week in an interview with Engadget that they just wrote episodes 39 and 40. That would be the end of season two, which was only announced back in November.

The long lead time is due to the lengthy animation process, though it also has the knock-on effect of making the show unresponsive to fan concerns, which is exactly how the Hagemans prefer it. The lengthy production time keeps them beholden to the writer’s room and not a vocal online minority, a phenomenon that has derailed other franchises (most notably Star Wars). For the Hagemans, their most important audience is kids, but not in a way that talks down to children. The decision to set the series so far from explored Federation space is part of keeping it accessible to newcomers, while also freeing it from any constraints imposed by any of the concurrently running Trek programs on Paramount+ like Picard.

Nickelodeon

But even as it remains kid friendly, the Hagemans told Engadget that they want to create the kind of moments that “[stick] to your bones,” like seeing “ET dead on the table.” They want the show to have an impact, and this week’s scene with Zero is hopefully one of those.

Another inspiration for this season of Prodigy comes from a less sci-fi, more action-oriented source: the 1993 film The Fugitive. Not so much in the idea that we’ll see a lot of train explosions, but more in the sense that there’s no real villain in the central conflict. The plot arc will involve Starfleet trying to get the Protostar back, and the kids having to keep it away due to what happened in this week’s episode. It’s just two well-meaning groups with different goals, something I’ve personally noticed in a lot of media lately and a premise that the Hagemans believe it’s important for kids to see.

Nickelodeon

It’s also important to them to see the kids grow and adapt to their situation, especially as they’re being tasked with situations that even Starfleet-trained officers would struggle with: “You see kids dealing with a lot of emotions; a lot of things are coming at them, and there’s times when you feel crippled, and that’s something you see in adolescence.” We’ve already seen some significant character growth for Rok-Tahk, and the Hagemans promise that the characters will age for whatever number of seasons the show gets. And even Murf gets a plot arc, one that “is not about what Murf is … more like where does Murf go; what does Murf become?”

Murf fans only have to wait for the next 10 episodes, at least. The rest of the season will see the crew finding out what the Diviner did to their ship, and how it puts the Federation out of reach. I’ve previously noted how the series showcases its technology by focusing on the have-nots, something on display this week as the prisoners of Tars Lamora finally get access to the universal translator tech that so impressed the Protostar crew early on. And, while the ship has seemed a bit overpowered compared to the other 24th century tech we’ve seen in other shows, the Hagemans promise it will still be limited in some ways, and the ship won’t be “zapping around at their will.” 2383 technology may have proved life-changing for Prodigy’s crew, but going forward the program can now showcase how it can also be fun.

Twitter increased its character limit over the years from 140 to 280 to give users more leeway with what they want to say. That's not always enough, though, which is why the term "tweetstorm" to indicate a series of interconnected tweets was coined. People also sometimes post images of lengthy statements instead. Based on a new discovery by Jane Manchun Wong, though, Twitter is working on a new feature that would cater to the needs of those who want to share their thoughts on the website in one lengthy article. 

Manchun Wong, known for finding experimental features within apps, discovered the existence of a "Twitter Articles" tab. The name itself signifies a long-form format for the social network that has long only allowed people to post bite-sized text messages, but its exact nature is a mystery for now. It's also unclear whether it will be available to everyone, if it does make it to wide release, or if it will be exclusive to Twitter Blue subscribers. 

Not everyone's keen on the idea either. Someone pointed out that it might reduce engagement on Twitter, since a thread of tweets often get multiple reactions and responses from the same users. A Twitter spokesperson told CNET that the company is "always looking into new ways to help people start and engage in conversations" and that it will share more soon. 

A website called HitPiece that has been selling music-related NFTs has temporarily closed after artists accused it of appropriating their work without permission, Rolling Stone has reported. Outraged social media posts were issued recently from artists including Jack Antonoff, Eve 6, and Sadie Dupuis. "Any [Bleachers] NFTs are fake," Tweeted Jack Antonoff. "I do not believe in NFTs so anything you see associated with me isn't real."

The HitPiece website is apparently built on top of Spotify's API. Before shutting down, it appeared to be offering NFTs of songs and albums from the likes of John Lennon and BTS, including photos and album artwork, according to the Internet Archive. 

Like many other NFT business models, however, it's not clear what HitPiece was selling, exactly. "This particular grift doesn’t really affect artists in that HitPiece wasn’t even selling files of the songs — just the receipt of purchase to the general idea of them," Infant Island guitarist and grad student Alex Rudenshiold told Rolling Stone. "It's still copyright infringement. It's re-commodifying the metadata (art, song and album titles, etc.) to make money without permission." 

HitPiece, founded by former indie label owner Rory Felton, issued a statement. "Clearly we have struck a nerve and are very eager to created the ideal experience for music fans," it said on Twitter. "To be clear artists get paid when digital goods are sold on Hitpiece. "We are continuing to listen to all user feedback and are committed to evolving the product to fit the needs of the artists, labels and fans alike." 

However, artists are skeptical of HitPiece's claim that they will be paid. "They steal your music, auction NFTs of it on their site, and when they get caught they say don’t worry you 'get paid,'" the group Deerhoof tweeted. "I get that corporate types are simply greedy and cruel on principle but what kind of mind could even imagine that doubletalk like this could somehow make it OK?"

Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse pivot is off to slow start. The company now known as Meta lost just over $10 billion on its Reality Labs division in 2021, according to its fourth-quarter earnings report.

“This fully realized vision is still a ways off,” Zuckerberg said of Meta’s metaverse investments. “And although the direction is clear, our path ahead is not yet perfectly defined.” Zuckerberg said the company planned to launch a new "high-end" VR headset as well as a mobile version of its Horizon VR experience.

It’s the first time the company has shared the financial performance of the AR and VR division that’s central to its metaverse ambitions. That the metaverse isn’t yet turning a profit isn’t a surprise. The company said last quarter that its AR and VR investments would result in a $10 billion loss for the company. But combined with flat user growth and continued hits to its advertising business, the company’s fourth-quarter results sent Meta's stock into a nosedive.

Meta

Facebook’s daily active users (DAUs) declined from 1.93 billion last quarter to 1.29 billion, a change that Zuckerberg attributes in part to increased competition from TikTok. “We're in the middle of a transition on our own services towards short form video like Reels,” Zuckerberg said. “Reels is now our fastest growing content format by far.” But he added that Reels doesn’t yet monetize as well as Stories or feeds.

Though Facebook’s ad business is still incredibly profitable — it made $32.6 billion in the last quarter — the company warned that Apple’s iOS 14 privacy changes will have a significant impact in the next quarter. “The accuracy of our ads targeting decreased which increased the cost of driving outcomes,” COO Sheryl Sandberg said on the call. Zuckerberg said improving the company’s ads despite Apple’s changes was one of Facebook’s top priorities, and that it was “rebuilding a lot of our ads infrastructure.”

Developing...

You can now use music from some Pokémon games without invoking the copyright wrath of Nintendo or The Pokémon Company — in certain circumstances. TPC has launched a Pokémon DP Sound Library that, as the name implies, lets you use audio from the original Pokémon Diamond and Pokémon Pearl games in personal projects. You can slip sound effects into a social media video, for instance, or even soundtrack your wedding with a favorite theme. Background music is also allowed for any non-commercial event or personal websites.

You can also download the music for personal consumption. The library website streams music on its own if you're just looking to reminisce with some online radio.

To say there are tight restrictions would be an understatement, however. The Pokémon Company has a strict ban on any commercial uses — you can forget about selling a Pokémon-inspired remix album or game. You can't use the content for broadcast radio or TV, advertising purposes or anything that implies an association with TPC. And did we mention that you can't use the media in anything that makes specific "ideological, religious, or political" claims? Add the requirement for a lengthy copyright notice (163 characters, or more than half the maximum Twitter post length) and you'll probably only be using Diamond and Pearl content very sparingly.

This gesture is a start, though, and it suggests The Pokémon Company is aware personal audio use might help the company's reputation more than it hurts. With that said, we wouldn't expect a dramatic change of heart. TPC's frequent partner Nintendo recently slapped GilvaSunner's YouTube-based soundtrack channel with thousands of copyright blocks, effectively forcing him to shut it down. We wouldn't expect TPC to be more lenient for commercial uses, even with the library in place.

Yacht Club Games, the developer behind the popular throwback platformer Shovel Knight, has announced a brand new IP. It's a top-down "bone-chilling action adventure" entitled Mina the Hollower that's inspired by Gothic Horror and is set in a bizarre world full of monster. The company has announced the new game at an event, where it has also launched the Kickstarter campaign to help fund its development. According to IGN, Yacht Club Games director and designer Alec Faulkner said the developer is financing a majority of the project, but it's returning to Kickstarter to build a community and get feedback from backers.

Faulkner said:

"We want your feedback, collaboration, and support in making Mina the Hollower the best game it can possibly be. That's why we're returning to our roots and kicking off Mina the Hollower’s development as a Kickstarter campaign.

Though we're financing a majority of this project ourselves, we hope we can create a more expansive game this way. More importantly, we want to build a community around Kickstarter, much like we did with Shovel Knight."

Shovel Knight's Kickstarter campaign raised over $300,000 back in 2013. Yach Club has since released various DLCs, expansions and spinoffs for it and brought it to the Switch a few years after it was released.

Mina the Hollower will feature an 8-bit aesthetic in the style of Game Boy Color titles, with 60fps action combat. In it you play as Mina, an inventor who can burrow under her foes to pop up on the other side and take them down with her trusty whip. Mina belongs to Hollower guild, which is dedicated to studying the earth and its latent resources and which has members that can move faster underground. 

Yacht Club has yet to reveal a launch window for Mina the Hollower, but it took over a year for Shovel Knight to make its way to backers. You'd have to pledge at least $20 for a digital copy of the game and at least $100 for a physical copy. 

It took a few months, but Netflix is now offering its first high-profile mobile game. The streaming service has broadly released Riot Games' League of Legends spinoff Hextech Mayhem for Android and iOS. This isn't a MOBA like League, as you might have gathered — instead, it's a "rhythm runner" that has you playing LoL champion Ziggs as you light bomb fuses, disarm enemies and dodge obstacles in sync with the beat.

Netflix has also released Dungeon Dwarves, its first "idle" game. Hyper Hippo's title (available on Android as we write this) lets you explore monster-laden dens even when you're not playing, and upgrade abilities when you are.

Riot's decision to launch Hextech through Netflix isn't surprising. The two unveiled the game just as Arcane began streaming — even if it's not really connected to the animated series, it serves as a plug for both companies. Riot also hasn't been shy about gaming crossovers, having dropped League of Legends characters into games like Fortnite. It's just a question of whether or not a game like Hextech will be popular enough to grow Netflix's fledgling game business and encourage other big-name projects.

Snap may not be particularly keen on the metaverse — at least, not as it’s been articulated by Mark Zuckerberg — but the company’s latest experiment certainly sounds a lot like a version of one. The company is teaming up with Universal to host a virtual concert featuring Jennifer Lopez and Colombian pop singer Maluma, which viewers can watch as their Bitmoji avatars.

The concert itself won’t take place in the Snapchat app, but would-be spectators can access the show by signing into the concert’s dedicated website with their Snapchat login. Users’ Bitmoji avatars will appear as spectators in the crowd. There are also a handful of interactive effects that will be available during the show, including the ability to start “the wave” and trigger a virtual laser effect. Lopez and Maluma will also appear as 3D Bitmoji avatars.

The event, scheduled for February 3rd, is meant to promote the upcoming rom-com Marry Me (also starring Lopez and Maluma), and is expected to last about 10 minutes, according to the company.

Virtual concerts have become one of the earliest examples of a metaverse-like experience. Fortnite’s in-game concerts are often referenced in discussions of what an eventual metaverse will look like. And Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has said he wants the Fortnite publisher to be a leader in the space. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has also referenced concerts in the metaverse, writing last year that in the future people may be able to “teleport instantly as a hologram” in order to attend shows.

But Snap executives have talked about the metaverse very differently. Snap AR exec Sophia Dominguez told Engadget in December that the company’s vision for the future is not to “escape into another world” but create experiences that can bridge physical spaces with virtual ones. (Snap CEO Evan Spiegel put it slightly differently, remarking last fall on the dystopic origins of the word metaverse. “I think the basic notion was that you know as the physical world was sort of crumbling in this dystopian future that people would escape into this virtual world — that's not at all a focus for us,” he said referring to Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash.)

What’s less clear is if Snap intends for Bitmoji-led concerts to be a regular occurrence like Fortnite has (Live streaming platform Oz is powering the tech behind the show). But if the company’s first big foray into metaverse adjacent experiences is a hit, it’s not difficult to imagine Snap could host more Bitmoji-driven live events.

Hazelight Studios and Sonic the Hedgehog production company dj2 Entertainment are aiming to turn It Takes Two into a movie or TV show. Pat Casey and Josh Miller, who wrote both Sonic movies, are onboard to adapt the co-op game for the big or small screen. Although no studio or network has snapped up the project just yet, Variety reports that a bidding war is underway.

“Creating the world and story in It Takes Two was so much fun for me and the team,” Hazelight founder and creative director Josef Fares said in a statement. “Since it has a strong narrative with many crazy characters and just as crazy co-op action moments, the potential is huge for a great adaption to film or television.”

At the 2021 Game Awards, It Takes Two won three honors, including the game of the year gong. EA published it last March and more than three million copies were sold by October. Along with It Takes Two and the Sonic movies, dj2 is working on a Tomb Raider anime for Netflix. It's also developing a Disco Elysium series and a Sleeping Dogs movie.

Although It Takes Two received widespread plaudits for its platforming and asynchronous split-screen gameplay, several critics took issue with the "stay together for the kids" story and an "awful" character called The Book of Love. With some finding the plot to be the weakest aspect of the game, it'll be interesting to see how that translates to a movie or TV show.