A couple of days ago we released our pilot NFT drops for the games Flip Flop, Conquest.eth, and Forest Cuties in the form of digital art cards over at Paras.id. We wanted to introduce the concept of fractionalizing a game into multiple NFTs as a form of support to the game creators and eventually become a participation token in the upcoming DAO. After this release, we want to reach more game developers and help bridge them to Web 3.0. To achieve this goal, OPGames has once again teamed up with Gitcoin.

About Gitcoin

Gitcoin is a community for developers to collaborate and monetize their skills while working on Open Source projects through bounties and grants.

Gitcoin delivers value in a number of ways: open & exclusive hackathons, incubation programs, educational hackathons, bug bounty programs, and much more.

From June 16th-July 7th, the Gitcoin Grants round 10 will kick off and is set to be the biggest hackathon and Grants Round yet. OP Games is thrilled to be one of the sponsors along with other awesome blockchain startups.

If you plan to participate, make sure to join our discord channel for announcements.

About OPGames

OPGames enables developers and the community to own, run, and monetize games as a collective. Through OPGames’ suite of tools and SDK, developers can turn entire HTML5 games into fractionalized NFTs offered to the public as investable assets. Founded in 2018 by gaming veterans, OPGames’ seeks to lower down the barrier to game ownership.

Know more about OPGames:

Subscribe to our mailing list: https://www.subscribepage.com/opgames

Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Outplay_Games

Join our Discord channel: https://discord.gg/Z2pFxwzH

Be part of our Telegram group: https://t.me/outplaygames

Get the NFTs here: https://paras.id/opgames.near/collection

OPGames x Gitcoin: Shaping the Future of Web 3.0 Together was originally published in OPGames on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Joining game jams in recent years has paid off for the indie game developer of Flip Flop, as it bagged the top-ranked game for this year’s Gamedev.js. Like many other participants, he is a solo indie game developer that doesn’t have the machinery other professionals have. Honing his skills in his free time and joining game jams meant that he would have some kind of metric on his progress as a game creator.

Being a one-man team behind this really slick, visually-appealing game (and a main character with a bit of an attitude), we wanted to hear more about his experiences leading up to the creation of Flip Flop.

Q: How long have you been making games ? What are the challenges you currently face as an indie game developer?

I’ve been making games throughout my life, but they were mostly prototypes or unfinished projects. Since I’m one of those people who are too lazy to pick up a programming language, I always relied on some game development software. It was RPG Maker at first, which served me well in junior school, but in time I moved on to Construct.

My biggest challenge is probably my infatuation with game ideas. I move on quickly from one project to another and I tend to lose interest quite fast. It doesn’t help that I’m an omnivore when it comes to game genres and I love first-person shooters as much as story-driven RPGs or city simulators.

But, I told myself that 2021 would be different, and so far it is.

Q: What is your motivation to join game jams? It’s quite difficult balancing a full-time career on top of game development.

The first game jam I’ve joined was Ludum Dare 34 in 2016. It’s interesting how my motivation to join it was not because I wanted to test my skills, but because I was thinking of making a game called Ludum Daredevil, a tongue-in-cheek simulator of a game jam participant. So I joined Ludum Dare to see how it really feels to try and create something in 48 hours.

Even though I was far from winning that game jam, I liked the experience so much, I started taking part in a lot of them, to mixed results. It’s only this year that I really began refining my skills. My art was always okay, it’s gameplay and time management that I used to struggle with. So I made a point to work on these areas.

The best thing you can do is to compare yourself not to someone else, but to who you were yesterday. I look at my projects from a year or two ago, and I’m stunned at how much progress I’ve made. If I were to only look at other professionals and beat myself up for not being as good as them, I’d be getting nowhere.

Q: Dr. Flips has got a bit of a personality being “brilliant, but a bit cocky” — not to mention he refers to himself in the third person. Tell us more about this character.

Dr. Flips appeared out of nowhere, to be honest. Even his name was just a placeholder that stuck with him.

Since the premise of the game revolved around some failed experiment, a scientist was an obvious choice for a protagonist. It feels like when it comes to scientists, we mostly see either the mad scientist trope or some head-in-the-clouds genius. I wanted Dr. Flips to stand out and give him a bit of banter, so he became this cocky high-IQ individual.

He means well, but he is certainly aware of his own genius — and he wants everyone around him to be aware of it, too.

The biggest praise I’ve gotten was my friend telling me “Dr. Flips for Smash Bros!”. Flip Flop was inspired by classic Nintendo games like Kirby and Mario, with a pinch of Klonoa, and it proudly wears this inspiration on its sleeve.

Q: What are your insights on this collaboration with OP Games and turning Flip Flop into NFTs?

Like most creatively inclined people, I am of course familiar with NFTs and the boom that happened in the last few months. To be honest, I am more interested not in fungible tokens per se, but in the very concept of decentralized game development.”

“I think it certainly has potential, and the gaming industry is long overdue for a major paradigm shift like that. I don’t know if Flip Flop will become the poster boy of this shift, but it is certainly interesting to have a front-row seat as the revolution happens.

FlipFlop is this year’s winner of Gamedev.js Jam and bested 87 other indie game developers. Flip Flop card NFTs will be up for sale via Paras.id with limited copies available. Get early access to the cards by signing up on our whitelist form.

Soon to be playable on OP Arcade.

Subscribe to our mailing list: https://www.subscribepage.com/opgames

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Join our Discord channel: https://discord.gg/Z2pFxwzH

Be part of our Telegram group: https://t.me/outplaygames

About OP Games

OP Games enables developers and the community to own, run, and monetize games as a collective. Through OP Games’ suite of tools and SDK, developers can turn entire HTML5 games into fractionalized NFTs offered to the public as investable assets. Founded in 2018 by gaming veterans, OP Games seeks to lower down the barrier to game ownership.

On Game Jams, Indie Game Development, and NFTs was originally published in OPGames on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The new OP Games logo signaling its pivot from Alto.io which mostly focused on interoperable game assets on the blockchain.

From Alto.io to OPGames

Over three years ago, we founded Alto.io in the hopes of changing the status quo for small and mid scale game developers. It was a time when non-fungible token (NFT) was still a struggling buzzword, a time when idealistic founders and developers such as myself and many others liken this early premise of a metaverse to Ready Player One. I’d like to think it still is, although much has changed since.

Coming in from the web 2.0 game development and publishing sphere meant a couple of things, that we’ve seen how centralized platforms and gatekeepers tilts the balance on game discovery away from smaller game developers, that revenue share tilts heavily towards the platforms more than the creators. We initially tried to address this with Alto.io by building picks and shovels for developers wanting to cross the chasm to web 3.0.

Halfway through, we realized we were too early; that a paradigm shift is needed before slowly dismantling the old ways of doing things to pave way for the new, and even this isn’t a guarantee to success. This isn’t just about slapping in crypto and blockchain to an already ongoing centralized game economy, it requires building from the ground up, creating a model deeply rooted in the principles of web 3.0 and decentralization.

Moving the Needle from Web 2.0 to Web 3.0

These challenges hit us hard early on. Not being able to create and prove the traditional game market’s willingness to dabble into web 3.0 was a tough pill to swallow. That left me realizing, not everybody drank the Kool-Aid yet and it will take time. Nonetheless we persisted, I always believed there is promise to our premise, just not in the way I thought it would be. We took a step back, cleared our heads and went back to the core of why we are doing what we do. There was a moment of clarity, we thought, less NFTs as game assets and focus more on crypto tournaments for competitive casual games.

Hard as it was, we shelved Alto.io and pivoted to OP Games, a suite of tools that enable game developers to turn their games into competitive multiplayer tournaments with crypto as a buy in and pay out . We ran with this idea for a year but were also faced with the same issue, while a majority of casual and hypercasual games on the App Store and Play Store are struggling to monetize, it takes time to move the needle. I thought that for developers there’s nothing to lose and everything to gain in this model, but that seems entirely inaccurate given that these developers are struggling and any time given on risks and embarking on unfamiliar journeys is a steep enough price to pay.

Link to GIF: http://gph.is/2b21Hsp

Going Back to our NFT Roots

OP Games have come full circle from NFTs, crypto tournaments and back to NFTs. We are now fully focusing on a very specific subset of games, HTML5 web games to be exact. This is the most underserved segment of the game development space, with no clear pathway to monetization relying mainly on intrusive advertisements for whichever game platform they join. While indie friendly platforms like Steam and Itch.io provide games a level of discovery, gaming is still a hit driven business and the path to success isn’t always in the cards.

The OP NFTs: Turning Games into Investable Assets

“Classic Snake” is one of the pilot NFTs of OP Games. The card was airdropped last May 30 to promote the upcoming launch of the OP NFT collection in Paras.id.

At OP Games, we seek to lower down the barrier to game ownership by enabling developers and the community to build, run and operate games together.

We work with game developers by turning their entire games into NFTs, fractionalizing it to however many, selling it to the community and enabling a DAO for game owners to make proposals, vote for game updates, fund additional development or elect new developers into their games. In this model, we are derisking a huge chunk of the games success dependency from a single developer to the entire community, giving games more viability to succeed.

Exit to the Community

Mockup for the OP Games platform. It invites users to help shape the future of the games OR become a top scorer in the game tournaments.

Through OP Games, small scale creators and game developers now have the option to exit to community and hand over the keys to the people that value these games the most. This enables game developers to work on future interests and projects, while the community runs the games, with developers on the receiving end of royalties.

DAO and game governance

The community will become the central pillar on how games are operated. A fully functional Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) that contributes through usage, governance participation, and even investing. Each game is equipped with game treasuries where a percentage of the initial OP NFT pre-sale will be funneled into the treasury along with all the earning of the games on pooled crypto tournaments and any other revenue generating methods. The community can use the treasury to disburse money back to them, fund additional developments in the game or elect a permanent developer to work on the game.

Creating Opportunities

With the rise of collectively-owned games in OP Games, the demand for communities seeking talents like developers and artists increases. This creates a need for game communities to work with developers, artists or marketers with aligned financial incentives to further improve the quality of their existing games. As the game becomes better and the user base becomes larger, the value of these NFTs also appreciates.

For players, this isn’t just an opportunity to discover games and support communities, they earn rewards based on the amount of time they sink into the games and the platform. Implementing the right kinds of incentives is a powerful driving force in increasing user satisfaction and loyalty.

We aim to create more opportunities for people, whether you’re a developer, an NFT investor or a player. You all have a role to play in disrupting the biggest roadblock for independent and small scale creators; centralized gatekeepers and their rules that govern us. We are very fortunate at OP Games to have experienced these problems first hand and to be in a capacity to do something about it and we’d love for you to join us in our journey.

You can follow me on Twitter.

Subscribe to our mailing list: https://www.subscribepage.com/opgames

Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Outplay_Games

Join our Discord channel: https://discord.gg/Z2pFxwzH

Be part of our Telegram group: https://t.me/outplaygames

About OP Games

OP Games enables developers and the community to own, run, and monetize games as a collective. Through OP Games’ suite of tools and SDK, developers can turn entire HTML5 games into fractionalized NFTs offered to the public as investable assets. Founded in 2018 by gaming veterans, OP Games seeks to lower down the barrier to game ownership.

OP Games Then and Now was originally published in OPGames on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Alto.io pivots product line, announces the launch of Outplay Games

Singapore, January 08, 2020 — Blockchain gaming outfit Alto.io announces it’s pivot to Outplay Games. This entails a rebranding of the Alto.io brand to Outplay Games as well as a complete overhaul of the product and services it is developing. This pivot is taking Outplay Games to an entirely different direction from its last year’s offering of NFT centric tool sets.

“Last year we have dabbled into building tools that focuses mostly on NFT’s and interoperable game assets on the blockchain. While we believe that this is going to challenge the status quo of how games are made in the future, this year we want to take a different approach to games and how we can help in crypto’s use cases and adoption via game tournaments and crypto payouts. This led us to pivot to Outplay Games to better serve an existing segment of the gaming market, the competitive casual and hyper casual genre” — Chase Freo, CEO of Outplay Games

The core of Outplay Games’ offering is an SDK and API that developers can easily integrate into their games so that they can host tournaments, allowing players to play against each other PvP style or join various pooled tournaments with a crypto reward component for the winners distributed via smart contracts. It’s currently running on Ethereum but will eventually add a few other layers such as Near Protocol among others. Along with this is a platform that will eventually house all Outplay integrated games.

Outplay Games is kicking off its launch with a closed beta of an HTML5 version of the game World of Mines, a classic throwback PC puzzle game with a world map twist and addictive game play. In partnership with Cogoo Inc. the creator of the game, Outplay Games will eventually be able to bring this classic game with highly competitive tournament experience for everyone to enjoy.

About Outplay Games

Outplay Games is a turnkey solution that lets game developers conveniently add a competitive layer into their games. Enabling them to transform games such as a single player game of skills into a multiplayer tournament challenge participated on by many.

Outplay Games designed a tournament system that not only allow players to play and compete against each other but also facilitate a fair crypto payout process to anyone who is able to outplay their competition.

Website: https://outplay.games/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Outplay_Games

Telegram: https://t.me/outplaygames

Blockchain gaming outfit Alto.io was originally published in OPGames on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Singapore — March 13, 2018 — Stockholm-based game studio, Antler Interactive announces the launch of its latest title, Krystal Kart, an innovative AR multiplayer title for iOS and Android. This physics-based AR racing game sends players drifting through the sci-fi galaxy Krystalverse with stunning stylized graphics along the way.

Players will adventure through a remote area of the galaxy, while racing the competition on fast looping Augmented Reality tracks. Players can look forward to both single player and multiplayer racing modes and collecting alien “krystals” or power-ups along the tracks to beat the competition as they speed towards the finish line.

“Drawing inspiration from childhood memories of remote-controlled cars and games like Mario Kart, we wanted to bring social racing into the future with AR and let fantasy tracks and fun jumps come to life in your living room.” explains CEO, Anna Norrevik, when describing the studio’s first mobile AR title.

The Android version of the game will also launch with blockchain support and Alto.io worked closely with Antler Interactive in building and implementing game assets on the blockchain, making it the first studio in the world to combine AR racing with blockchain assets. Alto issued and deployed a limited amount of Krystal Kart AR Vehicles that are currently available on Opensea.io for purchase.

“Working with Antler Interactive is a great step forward on introducing amazing games to the blockchain. Krystal Kart is perfect in that it accommodate elements and gameplay that’s both familiar and unique while also incorporating blockchain based items that are readily playable in game”, said Chase Freo, CEO at Alto.io.

Krystal Kart is free to play and is now available for download from the App Store and Google Play Store.

Play the Game Here: App Store or Google Play.

Buy Items Here: https://opensea.io/assets/krystalkartarvehicles

Follow us: Twitter | Telegram | Facebook | LinkedIn | Reddit | Discord

To learn more about Alto please visit: https://alto.io.

Alto.io Partners Up with Antler Interactive to Bring the World’s First AR Racing Game on the… was originally published in OPGames on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Casual Connect Asia successfully staged its gaming event last November 12th to 14th. Game developers, entrepreneurs, investors, and industry experts from across the world were present in Shenzhen, China, where conference attendees got to access three days of lectures, official networking parties, and 120 of the world’s best indie games along with its developers.

What makes this edition of Casual Connect Asia 2018 so special is the addition of its first ever blockchain gaming track. While the first two days focused on traditional game development, publishing, and marketing, the last day of the event shined light to new and emerging trends of blockchain gaming and how it’s set out to challenge the way we will build games in the future.

Alto.io together with Casual Connect assembled a roster of leading gaming projects on the blockchain.

Among the key project were:

Alto.io: CEO Chase Freo talked about Alto’s vision of an Item First Economy and how it will revolutionize games on the blockchain. In his keynote he explored the many new possibilities and opportunities blockchain can give game developers, including the economic incentives that an Item First approach on the blockchain brings with it.

BlaCat: Xiao Xiao, Co-Founder of BlaCat discussed building solutions to alleviate the user experience barriers when playing blockchain games. As a decentralized gaming platform built on NEO technology, their goal is to allow users to play blockchain games like conventional video games without the pain points we are currently experiencing withing this emerging category.

Binance Labs: Ling Zhang, Director at Binance Labs covered a very interesting talk on what drives investors into backing gaming projects on the blockchain. Ling further discussed Binance Lab’s investment thesis, as well as their general sentiment towards current blockchain game projects.

Animoca Brands: Sean Dudley, Senior Product Manager at Animoca Brands talked about how blockchain technology and more specifically Non-Fungible Tokens are primed to empower players more than ever before and explained why Animoca Brands sees games as that gateway to blockchain tech’s mass adoption.

ImperialThrone: Francis Peng, CEO of INFUN the makers behind the Ethereum based game Imperial Throne, discussed and shared INFUN’s thoughts and ideology on developing the title and broke down the reasons why they are dedicated to the marriage of blockchain and games. He also shared his thoughts regarding utilizing economic incentives to drive the game forward, as well as the challenges they have faced in the process of developing their game.

Aptoide: Tiago Alves, VP for APAC at Aptoide spoke about how blockchain will disrupt the app store business. In his keynote, he talked about Aptoides initiative via the App Store Foundation and the AppCoins open source protocol that will allow game developers to earn 85% of revenue share vs. 70% from Google/Apple and how will they be able to acquire users by using Proof-of-Attention instead of traditional performance marketing campaigns.

Panel Discussion: The final day of Casual Connect Shenzhen culminated in a panel discussion, moderated by Flowplay CEO Derrick Morton. He was joined by industry stalwarts Fabio Luiz, Head of Marketing at Bitguild, Josh Galloway, Vice President of BD at Plutus Ventures, Garret Jin, Co-founder of Bitforex, and Paddy Markham, CEO of CAPSL Entertainment. Together they shared their thoughts on current and relevant blockchain and gaming trends. They had particularly different takes on various hot topics ranging from Ethereum scalability, game item interoperability, to ICOs and game item pre-sales. It was a great panel overall and one that we’ll surely hold again in a similar fashion in the future.

The blockchain track at Casual Connect was a great success - igniting curiosity and sparking questions in the attending developer audience. Currently the general sentiment of game developers outside the blockchain game community ranges from pure excitement to extreme skepticism and who wouldn’t be skeptical to a certain degree? This is still uncharted territory somewhat and it takes a while for paradigms to shift and for technology to mature. What these projects are doing today is paving the way and piecing every bit of the blockchain gaming ecosystem so that when the time comes, moving from traditional games to blockchain games will be easier and more intuitive. This is only the beginning of many more talks and discussions about blockchain and games. Casual Connect and Alto will continue to enable these conversations whether on or off conferences. Hopefully we’ll see more projects joining us in the future. Make sure to get in touch! Casual Connect will be back soon in London 2019.

About: Alto.io is creating a decentralized platform with a suite of tools for game developers, item creators and players, built around the blockchain’s item-first economy. Through the Alto platform, interoperable cryptoitems (blockchain-based game items) will be minted, used, and sold across multiple games and users. We are setting out to enable a self-sustaining ecosystem built around the blockchain’s item-first economy that is fair and mutually beneficial for everyone.

Follow us: Twitter | Telegram | Facebook | LinkedIn | Reddit | Discord

Learn more about Alto: https://alto.io

Learn more about Casual Connect: http://www.casualconnect.org

Casual Connect Shenzhen 2018 Recap was originally published in OPGames on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Alto.io and GGRocket.io team up to develop a trustless ecosystem for tokenized in-game items that is powered by AI-based analytics services.

SINGAPORE — October 11, 2018 — Alto.io announced today that they will partner with blockchain protocol developer GGRocket. Designed specifically with gaming in mind, GGRocket developed the first tri-function blockchain with the mission to reward both developers and users alike for collecting gamers’ transactions, verifying identities, and targeting promotions through the use of AI technology. GGRocket’s analytics technology will allow developers, along with publishers and marketplaces, to optimize their dApps monetization and achieve more conversions out of their marketing budget. At the same time, users profit as well by rewarded for their data, creating more a democratic and transparent ecosystem.

“We’ve partnered with GGRocket to give our game developer community a solution to monetize their games and better optimize their marketing spend, resulting in more sustainable income for game and dApp developers alike”, said Gabby Dizon, Chairman and Co-Founder at Alto.io.

The Alto platform provides a suite of tools that enables developers, players, and content creators to mint, use, sell, connect, and search digital assets as part of an item-first economy. With this collaboration, Alto with their strong community of developer partners and GGRocket with their state-of-the art blockchain protocol and analytics tools aim to enable a trustless ecosystem for tokenized in-game items, in which all sides involved benefit from the data involved in these trades.

Alto.io: Whitepaper | Onepager | GGRocket.io: Whitepaper | Onepager

About Alto

Alto.io is creating a decentralized platform with a suite of tools for game developers, item creators and players, built around the blockchain’s item-first economy. Through the Alto platform, interoperable cryptoitems (blockchain-based game items) will be minted, used, and sold across multiple games and users. We are setting out to enable a self-sustaining ecosystem built around the blockchain’s item-first economy that is fair and mutually beneficial for everyone.

Follow us: Twitter | Telegram | Facebook | LinkedIn | Reddit | Discord

To learn more about Alto please visit: https://alto.io.

Alto.io forms key partnership with GGRocket to create data-driven item ecosystem was originally published in OPGames on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The champion will receive $70,000 in cash, Alto Coin, and marketing support, and will receive a storefront for the game on Alto.io

Three months. Thirty participants. Five demos. One winner. The Alto Cryptogame Challenge held its closing ceremony last week at PGConnects in Helsinki where Alto’s Chairman and Co-Founder, Gabby Dizon, announced the champion of this one-of-a-kind competition. It was a rollercoaster of a ride, and we couldn’t be happier with the results.

Five teams from Nigeria, Germany, Japan, India, and the Netherlands went into the final round at the beginning of August with five compelling concepts — ready to create strong, innovative demos and show the blockchain gaming world what they could do. Alto is extremely proud of what all these teams have accomplished, and we know we’ll be seeing more of them in the future. But there could only be one winner, and it had to be the team that best met the judges’ highly-competitive standards.

The demos were judged based on five criteria: fun and feel, use of cryptoitems, production quality, novelty, and business feasibility. The games should be stimulating and satisfying to play, and make the user want to keep playing. They should make meaningful use of original cryptoitems, and seamlessly supplement them with ACC Edition Challenge Loot. Gameplay should flow smoothly while assets, interface design, and performance should demonstrate high-quality production. They should stand out from other cryptogames either through a new concept or the blending of old ideas in novel, interesting ways. Finally, the developing teams should have a credible market plan with a reasonable chance of success.

The judges had their work cut out for them, and that is why we assembled a panel of notable experts in the gaming world to take on this task. Judging the demos were Pocket Gamer Co-Founder, Jon Jordan; Flowplay CEO, Derrick Morton; Crypto Bit Games CEO and Co-Founder, Rudy Koch; Lockwood Publishing CCO, Oliver Kern; Altitude Games Creative Director, Luna Javier; and Alto.io’s very own CTO, Paul Gadi. Their combined expertise and insight gave us the winners of the very first Alto Cryptogame Challenge.

Runner-up: BrainFunc (BioHackers)

Lead developer and designer Tejas Nikumbh was the mastermind behind BrainFunc, an ambitious e-learning game that revolves around the brain’s anatomy. Its ingenious concept and commitment to accuracy make it a praiseworthy game. As runners-up, BioHackers walked away with a cash and Alto Coin prize worth $10,000.

Second Place: Treasure Dungeon (Kiokumushi)

Treasure Dungeon impressed the judges with its deceptively simple dungeon crawler concept and addictively fun gameplay. The team behind it, Kiokumushi, is also working on a second blockchain-based game, Memory Insects. So the $20,000 in cash and Alto Coin they earned as second-place winners will definitely come in handy.

First Place: Crown of Carnage (Codeglue)

Crown of Carnage came to life as an idea during a pitching session. Though Codeglue had extensive developing experience through titles like Terraria and Rocket Riot, they were new to the blockchain gaming world. But they came through, producing a visually enticing and well-balanced game demo that successfully swayed the judges in their direction. Crown of Carnage is a team-based collectible card action game that incorporates blockchain technology through spell cards and character customization items.

Codeglue, with Co-Founder Peter De Jong at the helm, are the grand prize winners and will bring home $40,000 worth of cash and Alto Coin, plus an additional $30,000 in marketing support. Alto will also create a bespoke storefront for Crown of Carnage to hold an Initial Item Offering.

Other Finalists

Beating 25 other teams and pitches to be able to make it to the final phase was no easy feat, and all five finalists should be commended for their hard work. Loot Hunt’s unique fusion of augmented reality, card trading, and coop boss battles showed the judges something they’d never seen before. We’re sure we’ll be seeing more from Frank Duffner and his team, Digital Token Alliance, in the future. Last but not least, Ugarsoft gave us CryptoBarons, a multiplayer strategy and RPG built for the blockchain. Their integration of cryptoitems into a genre that has flourished in traditional gaming proved the team’s tremendous potential.

All in all, the Alto Cryptogame Challenge was a huge success and gave us an exciting glimpse into an ecosystem where cryptoitems are usable across multiple game worlds. It showed us what is possible when developers build their games with item interoperability as a core principle. The item-first economy has a bright road ahead, and the Alto Cryptogame Challenge just laid the first stone. Thank you to all the participants, our expert judges, and PGConnects for helping us make it a reality.

Follow us: Twitter | Telegram | Facebook | LinkedIn | Reddit | Discord

To learn more about Alto please visit: https://alto.io.

The Alto.io Cryptogame Challenge Crowns a Winner was originally published in OPGames on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Singapore, August 22, 2018 — Today, Alto.io announced that they will add support for the Waves platform. Through this partnership, developers on the Alto platform will be able to use the Waves blockchain to tokenize assets inside their games, leading to faster transactions and lower transaction costs.

Waves is a public blockchain whose upgraded protocol, Waves-NG, promises to accelerate transactions and make blockchain a much more attractive alternative for businesses and applications that require high transaction rates. For Alto, whose vision of a vibrant gaming economy based on the trading and selling of items is predicated on an efficient microtransaction system, this partnership is a match made in heaven.

“We are pleased to announce that Waves will be added as a supported blockchain protocol for the suite of tools of our blockchain game platform. Fast transaction speeds as well as low costs/fees of both token creation and transactions make Waves an excellent choice for games on the blockchain. We’re delighted to work together and introduce Waves to the community of cryptogame developers around the world to foster its adoption,” said Gabby Dizon, co-founder and Chairman of Alto.io.

Waves, for its part, aims to expand the use of blockchain beyond its current application by making it faster and more user-friendly. Since tokens on the Waves platform are part of the blockchain’s consensus they are easy to create and cheap to use — with no smart contract required for them to operate, while transfers follow the same process as every other cryptocurrency. As a result there is no gas fee for transferring tokens — eliminating additional overhead on creation and smart contract deployment.

Waves also firmly believes gaming is key to the adoption of blockchain technology by more traditional industries. With speeds of over 100 transactions per second and costs as low as 0.5 cent per transaction, Waves is a vast improvement upon Ethereum — making it an ideal protocol for blockchain games.

“The gaming industry is one of the most immediate use cases for blockchain technology, specifically tokenization. Game developers need a platform that will enable them to link in-game items to blockchain tokens so that they can be seamlessly integrated into different games, transferred and traded without friction. Waves is proud to be able to provide precisely that functionality to Alto, and looks forward to the fruits of this partnership!”, said Sasha Ivanov, founder and CEO of Waves Platform.

The Alto platform is built on the Ethereum blockchain and will continue to support it while it adds Waves as an additional blockchain protocol. Alto will provide game developers with the tools and documentation so they can easily tokenize their items using the Waves blockchain. Developers will be able to create Waves tokens using its cryptoitem creator, the Alto Forge. These tokens will then be supported by Alto’s upcoming mobile wallet, the Alto Backpack.

Alto and Waves are both committed to the development of blockchain technologies that push the limits of what is currently possible. This partnership provides an extraordinary opportunity to do so by increasing the potential of blockchain gaming as both a sustainable business model and a gateway to mainstream blockchain adoption.

About Alto:

Alto.io is creating a decentralized platform with a suite of tools for game developers, item creators and players, built around the blockchain’s item-first economy. Through the Alto platform, interoperable cryptoitems (blockchain-based game items) will be minted, used, and sold across multiple games and users. We are setting out to enable a self-sustaining ecosystem built around the blockchain’s item-first economy that is fair and mutually beneficial for everyone.

About Waves:

Waves is a decentralised platform with loads of real world solutions running on the blockchain. Waves was founded in 2016 by Sasha Ivanov, and its team of over 70 employees are working hard to provide new and secure solutions for people to start businesses on the blockchain.

Among the key functionalities of the Waves Platform are fast and secure decentralised exchange (DEX), user-friendly smart contracts, which cover almost every common use case there is, and a capability to issue a token in less than 60 seconds. Much of the platform’s functionality is easily accessible through the Waves client, available in desktop, mobile and standalone versions.

Since its launch Waves is working to fulfill its vision of creating a truly unique blockchain product that will be an industry standard in providing the most versatile and straightforward tokenization tools for everyday use.

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To learn more about Alto please visit: https://alto.io.

Alto.io Expands Platform to support Waves Blockchain with Key Partnership was originally published in OPGames on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Strategic partnership formed between Alto.io and ODX Network to connect decentralized games with a vast base of internet users in emerging countries

Singapore, August 20, 2018 — Alto.io (Alto) and ODX Pte. Ltd. today announced a collaboration to bring casual gamers in emerging markets increased access to a rapidly growing library of blockchain-based mobile game experiences. The deal will connect consumers leveraging ODX Pte. Ltd.’s Open Data Exchange (ODX) platform to numerous high-quality mobile game selections from Alto, the largest network of blockchain game developers in the world.

“Mobile games currently make up about 25 percent of the App Store and the number of casual gamers across the globe is growing,” said Nix Nolledo, founder and CEO of ODX Pte. Ltd. “It is estimated that mobile revenue will exceed $70 billion this year and the audience we serve is expected to be a big driver of this growth. Emerging markets present an unusual set of challenges, but the experienced team at Alto has developed a new model that modernizes the way developers create and market new titles as well as how players engage with and pay for games.”

Alto offers developers of all sizes a decentralized suite of tools that makes it easy and affordable to link games to the blockchain and further connect with new and existing players. Its unique platform enables anyone to mint virtual items/cryptoitems that can be permanently owned, traded and played across multiple game titles.

“Digital item economies is already a $46 billion market and cryptoitems have the potential to become a trillion-dollar market in no time,” said Gabby Dizon, co-founder and chairman of Alto. “Our goal is to drive that growth while creating value for developers and consumers across the globe. ODX is the perfect partner for reaching the growing number of mobile gamers in emerging markets; its platform enables frictionless discovery and consumption of games by allowing players to engage without requiring an expensive data plan.”

ODX Pte. Ltd., an offshoot of Xurpas, the largest consumer technology company in the Philippines, recently announced more than $60 million in commitments from leading global funds and tech leaders, to develop and scale its decentralized data marketplace. Alto will leverage the expansive ODX network to connect the large number of customers interested in mobile games to Alto’s discovery platform for premier blockchain-based titles.

For more information about the partnership, please visit https://odx.network/ and https://alto.io/ and check out the Alto whitepaper at https://alto.io/ALTO_White_Paper_v1.4.2_en_US.pdf.

About ODX Pte. Ltd.:

ODX Pte. Ltd powers the Open Data Exchange (ODX), a global marketplace where publishers and internet service providers (ISPs) can transact at scale to deliver free internet access to consumers in emerging markets. Leveraging blockchain technology, ODX creates a network of trust, generating a truly open ecosystem. ODX Pte. Ltd. was established by the co-founder of Xurpas Inc., the Philippines’ largest consumer tech company.

For more information, please visit https://odx.network/ and join the conversation on Facebook, Reddit, Telegram and Twitter.

About Alto:

Alto.io is creating a decentralized platform with a suite of tools for game developers, item creators and players, built around the blockchain’s item-first economy. Through the Alto platform, interoperable cryptoitems (blockchain-based game items) will be minted, used, and sold across multiple games and users. We are setting out to enable a self-sustaining ecosystem built around the blockchain’s item-first economy that is fair and mutually beneficial for everyone.

Follow us: Twitter | Telegram | Facebook | LinkedIn | Reddit | Discord

To learn more about Alto please visit: https://alto.io.

Alto.io and Open Data Exchange (ODX) Join Forces was originally published in OPGames on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.