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GameStop Kills 33-Year-Old Gaming Magazine as Stock Price Sinks

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GameStop’s stock has weathered a rough week, and things only got worse on Friday as the broader stock market felt the pain from a series of rough economic reports that suggested the United States might be headed for recession. And it came on the same day as the video game retailer killed off an iconic industry brand.

On Friday, the long-running video game industry magazine Game Informer announced that it had immediately shuttered after 33 years, with both the print and web versions of the publication closing. The entire staff of writers, editors, and other employees were laid off as a result.

“From the early days of pixelated adventures to today’s immersive virtual realms, we’ve been honored to share this incredible journey with you, our loyal readers,” reads a statement posted to the magazine’s Twitter (aka X) account. “While our presses may stop, the passion for gaming that we’ve cultivated together will continue to live on.”

Owned entirely by GameStop, Game Informer had outlasted most of its print competitors in part due to its unique relationship with the video game retailer, which offered the magazine to customers as part of a membership plan that included store discounts and other perks.

But while some rival video game publications have axed their print editions but continued to produce online coverage in one way or another, Game Informer is closing up shop entirely. Its website now displays only a placeholder, with its library of coverage now inaccessible to readers.

Decrypt reached out to GameStop for comment on the closure, but did not immediately receive a response.

The move is the latest attempt by the storied retailer to evolve with the ever-changing video game industry, which has gradually been shifting from a model of physical media into a world with more purely digital software—and a slew of devices that can capably play games, even if they’re not dedicated gaming consoles or handhelds.

GameStop has broadly struggled with that transition, weathering six straight years of total operating income losses as the firm attempts to expand its business with its entry into smartphone trade-ins and its now-shuttered NFT business.

The one bright spot in recent years has been stock price gains propelled by investor enthusiasm around the “meme stock” saga, most notably in 2021. The stock jumped again in May and June as online personality Keith Gill (aka Roaring Kitty) returned after a three-year hiatus, but GME has struggled to maintain those gains in recent weeks.

GameStop’s stock price is now down 13% over the last week to a closing price Monday of just over $21.00. That plunge includes a 3% daily dip on Friday alongside broader market bleeding, which was apparently spurred by a rough U.S. jobs report that some analysts say points to a coming recession.

The retailer’s stock price was on its way up in mid-July, briefly rising above $28 per share—but has since shed those recent gains, falling to a low not seen since late May.

Edited by Ryan Ozawa.

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HashCats prepares for Token Generation Event after completing mining season

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HashCats, a tap-to-earn miner game, is concluding its first season and shifting focus to its upcoming Token Generation Event. 

With nearly five million players engaged in the game’s first six months, HashCats has announced a $500,000 giveaway in collaboration with its partner Choise.ai to reward players ahead of this next phase, according to a release shared with crypto.news.

T2E games, which allow users to earn cryptocurrency by playing, have gained attention but faced challenges in maintaining long-term engagement. Games like Hamster Kombat and Catizen (CATI) initially sparked hype but have struggled to sustain user interest.

HashCats is trying to buck this trend by expanding its ecosystem and enhancing player incentives.

HashCats background

Tap-to-earn games let users generate cryptocurrency by playing simple games. In HashCats, players mine $HASH tokens by tapping their screens and upgrading virtual mining equipment. These tokens can then be converted into cryptocurrency or used within the game’s ecosystem. 

Unlike traditional games that charge for upgrades, T2E games aim to provide a potential income stream for players.

Season 1 of HashCats introduced basic mining mechanics, enabling players to use a single virtual ASIC miner designed for mining specific digital currencies based on their hashing algorithms. 

According to the release, Season 2 will expand this concept, enabling players to manage a full mining farm and introducing Secret Points, which boost TGE rewards. Players from Season 1 who accumulated SP through contests and giveaways will gain an advantage in the new phase.

HashCats and Choise.ai Collaboration

The partnership with Choise.ai, a platform that merges traditional finance with blockchain, adds an extra layer of incentives. 

The ongoing $500,000 giveaway includes events like the “Wheel of Fortune” contest, where players can win CHO tokens. Choise.ai also plans to launch Visa and Mastercard options tailored for HashCats players.



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How Dogecoin Beat ’Em Up Game ‘Super Doginals’ Came to Life

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The launch of arcade-style beat-’em-up game Super Doginals came at an opportune time this month, being inscribed on the Dogecoin blockchain right as the original meme coin saw a resurgence in demand and attention, with DOGE hitting a three-year price peak.

But there’s little indication that the rollout was specifically timed like that. As pseudonymous creator Pimax told Decrypt, the game was created in honor of the fun vibes that have defined Dogecoin and its community for over a decade.

“I created Super Doginals as a tribute to the Doge spirit and playful culture,” they said, “adding my own touch to it.”

Super Doginals is particularly polished and robust for a web game, let alone a crypto game inscribed directly onto a blockchain. It’s simple in design, taking its cues from classic button-mashing brawlers like Fatal Fury and Streets of Rage, but has charming artwork and music, and really does capture the spirit of the meme coin’s fandom.

Pimax said that the game was developed using OpenBOR, an open-source game engine, which was ported to the WebAssembly language to run well in web browsers and remain compatible with the Doginals protocol standard.

It’s also a “lightweight” engine, they said, which was key for a game that would be fully inscribed onto a blockchain. Meanwhile, the old-school pixel art vibe both paired well with the retro gameplay and didn’t take up too much space, though the original music posed a bigger challenge.

“Pixel art was an ideal choice because it’s lightweight and scales nicely on higher resolutions without needing extra data,” said Pimax. “The heaviest component was the music—35 minutes in total—so we compressed it into the web-friendly OGG format to keep it Dogecoin-compatible.”

Super Doginals screenshot
A screenshot from Super Doginals. Image: Decrypt

Pimax wanted to put everything on-chain, right on Dogecoin’s blockchain itself via Doginals—a protocol that, like the earlier Ordinals for Bitcoin, lets users inscribe artwork, code, and other data onto the chain. That can yield assets akin to NFT collectibles, but it can also enable interactive games and apps that fully live on-chain.

The builder first experimented with on-chain games on Dogecoin earlier this year, porting over the original shareware version of first-person shooter Doom, as well as launching a Doge-themed riff on Tetris.

But Super Doginals is a much more ambitious project—not just because it’s an original creation, but also because the size of the game requires the use of multiple inscriptions that work together as one in a process called recursion. Doginals then pulls all of the pieces together into a single, playable game, plus that approach unlocks potential add-on features as well.

“We inscribed the game engine, assets, and utility functions separately, then tied them all together in a final Doginal,” said Pimax. “This approach enables others to build on Super Doginals by adding their own levels, characters, or even creating entire games on top of existing on-chain content.”

Players will also be able to create a “delegate” inscription to have a version of the game in their own Dogecoin wallet, and playable through compatible wallet apps. Pimax said that details on this process will be shared in the near future.

Super Doginals was clearly born from Pimax’s own passion for Dogecoin and the community, but they shared that AI tools were used to make this a manageable solo project. In their view, the AI tools only helped them execute on that vision, rather than strip away their human touch.

“As a solo developer, I used AI tools to accelerate development—whether drafting art, composing music, coding, or gaining insight,” they said. “Today’s AI tools give developers superpowers. While they don’t replace human talent or creativity, they provide a massive productivity boost, making it possible to create a game like this.”

“It still required many months of work with a lot of hands-on effort,” Pimax concluded, “but AI, combined with ingenuity and determination, made it possible to tackle this project on my own.”

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Here Is Today’s ‘Tomarket’ Telegram Game Daily Combo

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Telegram crypto game Tomarket is currently conducting its airdrop process via The Open Network, but the game is still letting players rack up tomatoes for potential future rewards.

Tomarket offers various ways to earn tomatoes, including by farming them over a three-hour span, playing a game where you’ll swipe over falling tomatoes, and completing tasks that point you towards YouTube videos and other Telegram games and communities.

But now Tomarket has launched another way to juice your earnings, adding a daily combo feature. Unlike the daily combos seen in games like Hamster Kombat and Captain Tsubasa: Rivals, this one gives you a grid of little pixel characters and tasks you with tapping the three faces in question—and in the right order.

Tomarket offers teases of the solution via YouTube videos, but Decrypt’s GG will make it easy on you: We’ll be updating this guide daily for the foreseeable future with the latest solution, as seen below. Enjoy the free digital tomatoes.

Tomarket daily combo

Tomarket’s daily combo is found by tapping the Tasks button at the bottom of the screen. You’ll need to watch the YouTube video listed under “Time-limited tasks” and successfully claim the reward before entering the combo, so be sure to do that first.

Here is the daily combo solution updated on Friday, November 8:

Image: Decrypt

The daily reward is 15,000 TOMATO, 2 stars, and 3 tickets.

Editor’s note: This story was originally published on October 16, 2024 and will be updated daily with the latest combo.

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