Mobile gaming powerhouse Zynga has big plans for blockchain and NFT-based gaming this year, including staff expansion, acquisitions and some playable games.

Why it matters: Zynga is taking more aggressive steps than other traditional gaming companies into the booming, but controversial, blockchain gaming sector.

• Blockchain/NFT games tie in-game objects to unique IDs, which can then be bought or sold, adding a real-world economic layer to games.
• Proponents say this empowers players to earn money through play, while detractors say it only drives speculation and doesn’t make games better.

The details: Zynga aims to build its new blockchain team from a current 15 or so to as many as 70 to 100 by year’s end.

• “It’s a studio,” Zynga blockchain chief Matt Wolf told Axios, who said the company is currently hiring for senior positions, including creative director and a “tokenomics designer.”
• Part of the team’s expansion plans includes partnerships and acquisitions, continuing Zynga’s position as a frequent buyer of game companies.

No NFT games from Zynga have been announced, though Wolf said he hopes to release a “ground-up, dedicated product” this year, “sooner than later.”

• Initial news of Zynga’s NFT plans last year stoked speculation of the company’s signature games Farmville or Words with Friends getting NFTs. But Wolf says the current plan is to separate its NFT game ideas from its big series, citing potential player confusion.
• The company’s game teams will have the option to opt in or out of any NFT plans, a notable stance given reports of internal protest against the technology at game companies EA and Ubisoft.

Zynga’s early blockchain games will target players familiar with the genre and who may not be looking for robust gameplay.

• “When they enter into one of these products, they come at it from an investor or, a whale, point of view and are interested in specific elements, including yield,” Wolf said. (A whale is industry jargon for players who are really big spenders.)
• “We don't want to bring them something that they didn't ask for, and we don't want to assume that they want a super, super deep gameplay experience.”

Microsoft executives are warming up to regulators in Washington regarding their proposed acquisition of gaming giant Activision Blizzard by pledging a future that includes an open, "universal" app store, my Axios tech colleague Ashley Gold reports.

Driving the news: On Wednesday, Microsoft announced a set of "Open App Store Principles" the company says will apply to the Microsoft Store on Windows and the next generation of its game marketplaces.

Details: Seven of those principles center on security, privacy, quality, safety, accountability, fairness and transparency, and the company says it is committing to those principles starting today.

• The four remaining principles would change how developers use app stores by not requiring developers to use Microsoft's payment system, not giving its app store more favorable terms, not disadvantaging developers who use a different payment system and not preventing developers from communicating directly with customers.
• The Open App Markets Act, recently approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee, would cement many of these principles into law.

Stephen's thought bubble: Microsoft included a crucial caveat in today's briefing, acknowledging that all of these principles don't currently mesh with the existing Xbox game store.

• The company said it would "commit to closing the gap" on those final four principles "over time."
• Microsoft justifies the current model, which grants Microsoft a 30% take of Xbox store revenue, as one based on consoles being sold at a loss (for what it's worth, Sony says it already profits from PS5 sales).
• In a new store, developers would someday be able to choose to use Microsoft's payment system and other services, such as streaming tech, or not. "We're going to evolve the business model to support how much of the functionality we're providing them that they adopt," Xbox corporate vice president Sarah Bond told Axios.

Microsoft gaming chief Phil Spencer doesn't just want its upcoming Xbox and PC game Starfield to sell well, he tells Axios that he wants it to be the biggest game ever from the team led by Bethesda's Todd Howard.

Why it matters: Spencer's bold statement suggests that a game that is currently planned to skip PlayStation could somehow top Bethesda games such as the decade-old Skyrim, one of the best-selling games of all time — and one that's been released on every gaming platform imaginable.

• "When Todd and I talk about Starfield, it's: 'How do we make sure this is the most-played Todd Howard game ever?"

Note, sharp-eyed reader, he says "most-played," not highest-selling. Microsoft's current strategy is to put its games on Xbox and PC as well as on more screens via cloud gaming. And it bundles them into its Game Pass subscription service, which now has 25 million users.

• That strategy got last fall's Forza Horizon 5 to 18 million players, a series best.
• Microsoft would not comment on its cloud gaming plans for Starfield.

⬠ The Pentagon-backed America’s Army game will shut its servers down on May 5, marking an end to a 20-year franchise that doubled as a military recruitment tool.

🤔 Ubisoft has turned a planned expansion of 2020’s Assassin’s Creed Valhalla into a standalone game for release late this year or in 2023, Bloomberg reports. The game, code-named Rift, would be smaller and focus on stealth, a possible throwback to older AC releases.

🚙 Sony has created an AI that can teach itself to beat top human players in the Gran Turismo series, the company announced. The trickiest thing for the AI to learn: sportsmanship.

😲 Amazon’s newest game release, Lost Ark attracted more than 500,000 concurrent players on PC in its first day of release, according to the tracking site SteamCharts. The Diablo-style kill-enemies-and-get-loot adventure originally launched in Korea in 2019 and was brought to Western markets this week.

🐺 Telltale and AdHoc Studio will release a second season of the fables-based series, The Wolf Among Us, in 2023. The company released a new trailer for the game today.

Meet the hundreds of horse girls running Red Dead Online's kindest posse [Lauren Morton, PC Gamer]

"Quarantine happened and a lot of people weren't able to see their horses," [professional equine photographer Chelsea] Farace explains. She was frequenting a Facebook group of horse-loving gamers at the time, and a post caught her eye. "Red Dead people were like 'let's have online trail rides!'" These horse riding groups were largely being led on consoles, so Farace decided to corral a group of PC players herself. "These are my people," she thought at the time. "I've gotta try it!"

Gaming and movie rights to "The Lord of the Rings" are for sale and are expected to fetch at least $2 billion, Variety reports.

Why it matters: In terms of gaming, it opens up new possibilities about where future LOTR games could land.

• The franchise has produced some good games, including a hack-and-slash series from EA, a cute Lego spinoff and the groundbreaking Shadow of Mordor from Warner Bros. (That’s the one that introduced the patented nemesis system that connects all of a game’s enemies into a networked crew who remember your encounters with them).
• There’s still a Gollum game coming, but those other studios had moved on. The Shadow of Mordor team is now making a Wonder Woman game.
• A buyer could produce a whole new batch, or could just spend that $2 billion or so to make something brand new.