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npixel‘s Gran Saga: Unlimited will be the first game to be published on the Aptos Network, a new Web3 platform.
The game is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) and will be based on Npixel’s original Web2 game Gran Saga. Gran Saga was one of the highest grossing games on the iOS App Store.
Now the companies are releasing Gran Saga: Unlimited to take advantage of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), blockchain and GameFi. Web3 gaming will be a core focus for Aptos heading into the new year, and this upcoming title featuring Npixel, a fast-growing South Korean game maker, will be the first of many gaming projects to launch on the network, the company said.
Palo Alto, California-based Aptos has built a Layer 1 blockchain called Aptos Network. Aptos has raised more than $400 million from investors including a16z, Jump Crypto, Binance Labs, Katie Haun, Multicoin Capital, PayPal Ventures and Coinbase Ventures.
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Within the Web3 gaming ecosystem, Aptos provides the fundamental tools for authentication, security, connectivity, and creativity for game developers both inside and outside the crypto space. Since Aptos launched on the mainnet just two months ago, the network has locked down hundreds of thousands of users, millions of transactions and a total value of $47 million.
Gran Saga: Unlimited will be the first game title from Npixel’s metaverse ecosystem Meta pixel to use Web3 and blockchain technology. It will be a sequel to the original Web2 game, Gran Saga, which has been downloaded more than four million times.
Users will have the opportunity to earn in-game assets and minted gaming equipment as NFTs, which they can trade freely within various NFT marketplaces built on the Aptos network. The game will launch for PC platforms first and will later access the game via mobile smartphones.
Step-by-step plan and partnership
Testing for Gran Saga: Unlimited will begin in the first quarter of 2023 ahead of the expected global release in the second quarter.
Alpha testers will be recruited through the team’s Discord channel, launching soon. Several playtests will be held in the coming months to test and improve the blockchain features before launching it to the public.
Aptos announced in November the onboarding of Npixel as the networks’ first strategic gaming ecosystem partner.
Aptos origin
Founded by Mo Shaikh and Avery Ching, Aptos Labs is dedicated to creating better networking tools and seamless usability to bring the benefits of decentralization to the masses.
Ching has a PhD in high-performance computing and works on things like finite element analysis and protein folding simulations for some of the largest supercomputers. He also worked on search and data infrastructure to support web search, indexing and analytics.
He then worked for Facebook for 10 years, working on infrastructure stack for analytics across the company. In his last three years with the company, now Meta, he worked on the Libra cryptocurrency project and the Novi wallet. He became the technical lead of the cryptocurrency platform team, but Meta chose not to launch it due to widespread opposition.
There he worked with Shaikh, who became the CEO at Aptos.
Regarding the current crypto crisis caused by the collapse of FTX, Shaikh said in a previous interview that he came from a world where managing billions of dollars and trust were very important.
“With the unfortunate circumstances with FTX, we see how that played out. I think it affects the whole space. But we generally think it’s pretty healthy that bad actors will no longer be in the space,” Shaikh said. “And it gives people who take this technology that we talked about very seriously, who operate with the best ethics, with great investors, the chance to really step up and capitalize on this opportunity. And that is where our focus is today. Our heads are down and we keep building.”
Aptos tries to make its technology friendly to users, who don’t have to worry about getting hacked and losing everything. If necessary, you must be able to transfer your assets from one account to another. You should be able to adjust the recovery schedule if you lose a crypto key. Such things are very important to a non-technical audience, Ching said. The network must also be robust enough to handle billions of users and transactions.
A strong partner
Founded in 2017, Npixel is one of South Korea’s fastest growing game developers, reaching unicorn status with its Series B round in August 2021.
from npixel Meta pixel is a next-generation Web3 gaming ecosystem that will introduce a metaverse consisting of triple-A gaming IPs, through partnership with Aptos. By providing high-quality games using original IPs, truly owned game assets, and advanced gaming models, such as free-to-own, to open up a new open economy for gamers, Metapixel will define how real Web3 gaming is observed, Aptos said.
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