NFT MARKET UPDATE
August proved to be a non-fruitful month for most players in Web3. As the month ended, several blue-chip projects such as Sandbox, Decentraland, Voxels, and others have seen a decline in land caps and token prices. These grim numbers may be attributed to the drop in ETH’s price, which fell by 15.85%. On the other hand, many projects are keeping busy with new development and licensing breakthroughs, which we’ll talk about to spread optimism in this lengthy bear market.
Before everything, we really need blockchain tech. The likes of Blizzard have made that evident; let’s go!
BLIZZARD IS THE EPITOME OF WHY GAMING NEEDS BLOCKCHAIN
Long-running game company Blizzard wasn’t afraid to ruffle some feathers when they locked the account of a high-ranked wizard Shia after detecting that the ‘eternal orbs’ he has weren’t obtained from the game’s own marketplace. By the way, these orbs are expensive AF, and many gamers turn to third-party sellers who sell them for cheaper. These sellers are shady too, and the game company penalized players instead of the sellers.
On a whim, Shia the wizard can’t access his existing assets and is now forced to give up on the thousands of hours spent on the game — not to mention the money invested too. Blizzard has quickly earned villain status, with many speaking against the developer’s power to essentially confiscate players’ money and assets they earned. The need for blockchain has surfaced to be a better solution to issues like this, without the game company having complete control over its players’ assets.
NFT VIKING GAME COLLAPSE
Northern Guilds, a game launched in September 2021, was initially said to be “a fun-first, device-agnostic dungeon crawler blockchain MMORPG inspired by your favorite childhood games.” Apparently, the game has collapsed as it turned into nothing like it claimed to be.
It was revealed that the root of the unfortunate turnaround was faulty leadership when Martijn van Wezel, a Northern Guilds development team member, took to the game’s Discord server transparently posting an update that the game and the company, Pixie Interactive, behind it were dead. The former employee claimed that the last few months, which he calls “a nightmare, a tragedy, a dumpster fire,” as Pixie’s management team — consisting of CEO Thomas Konig and CTO Wesley Peeters — had constantly been focused on attempting to secure more money, including meeting with “Russian nationals.” In addition to the claim, they “had just secured enough funding a few months prior, to get us through 1.5–2 years of development.” Still, the leadership team had blown everything, from crypto investments to “excessive business travel.”
Konig and Peeters also allegedly started another project called “NFTVault,” with the knowledge of the rest of the team. The project failed. All the above and this ultimately led to the company’s bankruptcy.
“CAN’T BE EVIL” LICENSE ATTEMPTS TO FIX COPYRIGHT FRICTION
When you buy an NFT, can you do whatever you want with it? Can you print it on your T-shirt? How about make a movie out of it? If you don’t know, the case is you’re not alone. Everyone else is confused! This sitch is what venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) is attempting to address. While currently, many projects launch without licenses or with custom licenses that create more ambiguity than they resolve, a16z, aims to standardize licenses throughout the space.
“Can’t Be Evil” license is a series of agreements that let creators grant NFT owners partial or near-complete rights to their asset, and it’s based on the Creative Commons (CC) copyright framework. a16z is making them free to incorporate, with the intention of standardizing licenses in the Web3 industry
DOJA CAT x JBL NFT
When was the last time you suffered a severe last song syndrome from Kiss Me More? Just as the world thought Doja Cat would slow down after her viral hit, the artist now enters the world of NFT — for the second time! Together with JBL, the partnership brought “Fresh Fruit by Doja Cat x JBL NFT” to life. These NFTs are conceptualized by Doja Cat herself, showcasing fashionable fruit-themed JBL headphones, some with added perks like exclusive access to JBL Fest 2022, future JBL products, and many more!
Although the drops have already closed, this year’s JBL Fest will happen in Las Vegas on September 27–29. According to HARMAN’s VP of Integrated Marketing, Doja connects with her fans in progressive, authentic ways. Dropping ‘Fresh Fruit’ — JBL’s first NFT series — ahead of JBL Fest 2022 opens access to our fans and allows us to build a genuine relationship with our community.”
As more prominent figures and brands utilize NFTs in their projects, it is not hard to see that NFTs and the Metaverse will be a big part of our pop culture and, perhaps, daily lives.
