{"id":2958,"date":"2023-12-01T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-01T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ci02cfc09330002444"},"modified":"2023-12-01T13:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-12-01T13:00:00","slug":"zbd-launches-bitcoin-prize-pool-for-splitgate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/culture\/zbd-launches-bitcoin-prize-pool-for-splitgate","title":{"rendered":"ZBD Launches Bitcoin Prize Pool For 1047 Games’ FPS \u2018Splitgate\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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ZBD<\/a>, a New Jersey-based gaming technology company built on the Lightning Network, has announced a partnership with indie gaming studio 1047 Games<\/a> to enable bitcoin payments for players of Splitgate, a free-to-play competitive first-person shooter (FPS). The two companies will activate a PC-based tournament, \u201cThe ZBD x Splitgate Winter Invitational,\u201d for players beginning December 10. The winning team will receive a payout of 0.5 BTC (approx $18,000 dollars) instantly sent to the ZBD wallets of the winners.<\/p>\n

1047\u2019s Splitgate takes sci-fi elements, fast-paced gunplay and vertical mobility via portals to create a dynamic mutli-player environment balanced around movement, positioning and mechanics. The game originally launched in May 2019 and was touted as a competitor to games like Call of Duty and Fortnite. To date, it has received 18 million downloads, but has seen momentum slow down since 1047 ceased development<\/a> on the title in September 2022, reportedly in favor of focusing on a new game from the studio.<\/p>\n

Despite the slowdown, it appears 1047 is still exploring new ways of engaging its player base by using bitcoin Lightning payments to instantaneously settle its tournament payouts. While not a novel application necessarily<\/em>, as ZBD itself has enabled bitcoin payments across 100+ games prior, this is a notable milestone for the gaming industry as it has generally<\/em> been lost in the morass of Web3 vaporware. To see a thoughtfully-designed and truly competitive game integrate Bitcoin is indeed refreshing.<\/p>\n

1047 CEO Ian Proulx expressed excitement for the partnership in a press release sent to Bitcoin Magazine<\/em>: \u201cWe\u2019re always excited to hear innovative solutions to reward our players, such as what ZBD has done, and the tournament that they plan to hold later this month.\u201d<\/p>\n

For a competitive FPS game in particular to find success with Bitcoin may lead other gaming studios of the popular genre to explore similar bitcoin-based incentives for player retention and in-game performance. Additionally, gamers are digitally-native and arguably primed to be Bitcoin-curious given that proclivity for the amount of time they spend online.<\/p>\n

While Lightning payments are by no means widespread in the gaming industry, this foray by ZBD into a more competitive FPS arena could be a signpost that gaming studios are beginning to take a deeper look at integrating internet-native money into their player experience stack.<\/p>\n

For anyone out there who likes clicking their opponents\u2019 heads and wants a shot at some cold hard bitcoin, you can join the ZBD Splitgate tournament by registering on ZBD\u2019s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lightning gaming company ZBD will use its platform to deliver tournament winnings in bitcoin for players of competitive sci-fi shooter Splitgate by 1047 Games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2522,"featured_media":2959,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[523,460,1128],"class_list":["post-2958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-culture","tag-gaming","tag-lightning-network","tag-zbd"],"author_data":{"id":2522,"name":"Spencer Nichols","nicename":"spencer-nichols","avatar_url":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/spencer-nichols-96x96.jpg"},"featured_image_url":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/video-game-vr.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2522"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}