These are some recent news about NFTs.
Japanese NFT-supported gaming giant Square Enix has invested 7 billion yen ($52.7 million) in in-game developer Gumi to create “high-quality” mobile games, Blockchain games, and a Metaverse initiative, among other things.
Meanwhile, Michael Winkelmann, the highly successful digital artist also known as Beeple, believes that all physical art in the future will one day have an NFT attached to it.
Square Enix and Partnership with Gumi
According to a translation of a press release by the company, the partnership will help Gumi leverage certain Square Enix intellectual property, while it has also been hinted that the duo could team up for a marketplace focused on NFT games.
“We are already considering the establishment of a platform dedicated to Blockchain gaming and an NFT marketplace, etc. Through the collaboration between the two companies, we will provide a one-stop service from the development and distribution of Blockchain games to the sale and distribution of tokens and NFTs.”
The company also outlined plans to work on a series of NFT games that will likely have Metaverse integrations. The Japanese company has outlined a quirky new term called “Wow and Earn” which essentially refers to games built from a world-famous IP that is integrated with Blockchain-based Play-to-Earn (P2E) features.
“In the future, by considering the use of powerful content that everyone recognizes, we will move away from the highly speculative Blockchain games of the past and create value while enjoying fun and excitement. We strongly recognize that there is a need for game users around the world to create a Blockchain game that realizes ‘Wow and Earn,’” the statement read.
Gumi also stated that it is “working day and night” to develop its arm of the Metaverse-focused business as it looks to add another source of revenue outside of mobile gaming.
Gumi previously worked with Square Enix on a couple of mobile games as part of the Final Fantasy Brave Exvius series, and both firms are partners in the Oasys Blockchain gaming project, which is building its own network designed exclusively for P2E gaming.
Beeple Describes the Future of NFTs and Art
Speaking to the Wall Street Journal on December 23, Beeple suggested that NFTs will greatly help the art industry by providing superior methods of tracking provenance and storing verifiable authentic data.
“I think all paintings will eventually have NFTs attached just because, again, it’s a better system than just handing you a piece of paper,” he said, adding the following:
“If you had a standardization around ‘this is a painting,’ you could have all the provenance in the metadata of that NFT. You could have [that data on] where that painting was shown. So it’s all there and searchable in a database.”
As such, he believes that NFTs will eventually help build a standardized art database that “everyone trusts.”
By Audy Castaneda
