10/08/2021 Hot Five: More Embracer acquisitions, a Louis Vuitton NFT mobile game and Tencent stock plummets

The hottest articles of last week

Matthew Forde

To help you keep on top of a busy news cycle and the latest hot topics in mobile gaming, each week we round up the five most-read stories on PocketGamer.biz.

Read on and digest…

NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal signs $11M Astrals NFT settlement
NFTs weekly sales surge 94% as crypto market continues bullish run
NFT sales are dropping but believers still see a future for digital collectibles

1. Louis Vuitton launching NFT mobile game in August

French fashion brand Louis Vuitton is launching a mobile game with NFTs.

Launched on August 4th, 2021 for iOS and Android devices, Louis: The Game will be part of the company's celebrations for the 200th anniversary of its founder's birth.

2. Embracer makes eight acquisitions, including CrazyLabs

Swedish games publisher Embracer Group has purchased eight new companies, including mobile developer CrazyLabs.

The purchases totalled $315 million making it Embracer’s third-largest purchase this year.

3. Spanish casual startup Unusuall raises $3.6 million, led by Garena

Spanish startup Unusuall has raised $3.6 million (€3 million) in seed funding, which was led by Free Fire publisher Garena.

Unusuall's goal is to create casual mobile games with more social and more exciting experiences.

4. CrazyLabs acquires Firescore Interactive to boost Indian hypercasual ecosystem

Hypercasual publisher CrazyLabs has acquired Indian developer Firescore Interactive,

Founded in August 2018 by Karan Khairajani and Surojit Roy, the Mumbai-based developer has seen its mobile games generate over 200 million downloads.

5. Tencent stock falls by $60 billion following criticism from state media

Tencent has revealed that it will rein in accessibility options it has implemented for minors, following criticism from a state media article that saw $60 billion knocked off the company's valuation.

Following the publishing of the article, Tencent’s share price fell more than 10 per cent - plummeting the Chinese tech giant's stock by almost $60 billion.

The Mobile Games Developer Trends Survey is back for 2021, in association with AdInMo.

As a thank you for participating, we will give five lucky winners a free ticket to Pocket Gamer Connects Digital #8 and the first 100 participants will receive an exclusive 30% discount too. 

Complete the survey here to be in with a chance of winning and help shape our industry trends report to be published later in the year.
Arts

https://www.pocketgamer.biz/hot-five/77012/hot-five-more-embracer-acquisitions-a-louis-vuitton-nft-mobile-game-and-tencent-stock-plummets/

Interesting NFTs
Block Chain Dungeon
Once upon a time... a little boy named Leo loved to paint, draw and experiment. He also loved to play with blocks and chains, which drew him again and again into the rooms of his friends Michel and Angelo. Often they also met in virtual rooms of Cryptovoxels, Decentraland, Somnium Space or Sandbox to create new inventions, read books about new technologies, or just swing the brushes. But on this day something gigantic happened. A good friend of Leo came to visit and brought his girlfriend Mona, who wanted a piece of Leo's art on her skin. This was the birth of the NFT's, as Leo developed Non Fungible Tattoos in the Block Chain Dungeon of Michel and Angelo. From that day on people from all over the world came to get NFT's from Leo or one of his students, like "Skeenee the rat", who controls the NFT machine with his laptop. A new age began.
Dreaming at Dusk
More than 15 years ago, Tor onion services were brought to digital life. An ecosystem of onions has been blooming ever since. To commemorate this landmark in the history of privacy, we collaborated with @ixshells to create a one-of-a-kind digital artifact: a generative art piece derived using the private key of the very first onion service, duskgytldkxiuqc6.onion. This auction benefits the Tor Project, the nonprofit protecting your human right to privacy. 1020*1280 / 60fps / .mp4 / RSA1024
G2 BelleBlue Ragamuffin
Ugh! I'm G2 BelleBlue Ragamuffin. I've never told anyone this, but I once headbutted a dog. I once headbutted a chimpanzee. I don't like to talk about it. I hope you like kitten around as much as I do!
#49997
By OthersideDeployer
CryptoPunk #8857
The CryptoPunks are 10,000 uniquely generated characters. No two are exactly alike, and each one of them can be officially owned by a single person on the Ethereum blockchain. Originally, they could be claimed for free by anybody with an Ethereum wallet, but all 10,000 were quickly claimed. Now they must be purchased from someone via the marketplace that's also embedded in the blockchain.