Blockchain: The Next Level for Game Studios

Sony’s patent for transferring NFTs between game platforms has recently gained a little bit of attention. Filed back in September of 2022, the patent describes how NFTs could possibly be transferred “across different simulations and/or platforms.” These NFTs could be skins or other in-game assets that could be used across different games.

With over 32 million Playstation 5 gaming consoles sold so far and over 112 million active users of the Playstation Network, Sony’s interest in crypto is nothing to ignore. They are not the only gaming giants exploring the idea of incorporating Web3 into gaming, however, and investors might be interested to know of some of the most notable examples.

Square Enix

Headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, Square Enix is one of the most famous game developers on the planet, publishing beloved franchises such as Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. The company recently revealed they are releasing NFT trading cards for Final Fantasy 7, one of the most famous video games of all time. ‘Symbiogenesis,’ what Square Enix calls “a digital collectible art experience for Web3 fans,” is also slated to release later this year.

Ubisoft

Ubisoft is a gaming juggernaut, publishing and developing an enormous library of games. Their first foray into NFTs was announcing Ubisoft Quartz at the end of 2021, an NFT platform built on the Tezos blockchain. Digits, Ubisoft’s first offering of digital assets in Ghost Recon Breakpoint, were not met with much fanfare. Very little trading volume has occurred between the thousands of minted items and token production for the game was halted after only three months.

Yves Guillemot, CEO of Ubisoft, offers no indication that the company is fazed by their initial experiment. According to him, the company is in “research mode” in regard to blockchain technology. “Like so many things, at the beginning it’s not as good as it could be,” he said, “but like other new technologies they will find the right way.”

Konami

Another Japanese game developer interested in cryptocurrency, Konami, has previously announced they plan to launch their own platform for trading in-game NFTs. Job postings for Web3 positions, with the goal of working “together to expand our business to evolve with a new future for digital entertainment,” are listed in the company’s October 2022 press release.

Konami has already successfully dabbled in NFTs. Castlevania celebrated its 35th anniversary with an auction of tokens that earned over $162,000 in sales back in January, 2022. Not bad for a collection of only 14 items.

 

The Pokémon Company

Everyone, absolutely everyone, has heard of Pokémon. The 1996 GameBoy games grew into the highest-grossing media franchise of all time. Valuable Pokémon collectibles may soon no longer solely be physical, however. The Pokémon Company published a job posting on LinkedIn recently, with a “deep knowledge and understanding of Web 3, including blockchain technologies and NFT, and/or metaverse” listed in the job requirements.

A holographic Charizard would look rather nice in a crypto wallet, no?

CCP Games

EVE Online is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game that has been around since 2003. The game features an infamous in-game economy that is entirely controlled by its players. Some of the events of the game have even hit the news before- a space battle between players resulted in the loss of ships with a collective real-world value of over $200,000 back in 2014.

This kind of news may remind investors of the world of NFTs, and EVE Online’s developer, CCP Games, seems to believe there is room for the technology in the game’s universe. $40 million was recently raised in a round of financing for the development of “a new AAA title utilizing blockchain technology, set within the EVE universe.”

 

Web3 appears to have attracted the attention of many of the world’s largest game developers. With the list of names seeming to grow almost as quickly as one can click refresh, it is possible that the technology will be seen as a natural part of the industry in the near future.