Konami Celebrates Castlevania’s Anniversary by Selling NFTs
Japanese entertainment conglomerate and video game company Konami plans to celebrate Castlevania’s 35th anniversary by launching a non-fungible token (NFT) collection.
Called the “Konami Memorial NFT collection,” players can pick up 14 different, unique artworks from the monster hunting series when the auction goes live.
Konami is using the OpenSea cryptocurrency marketplace for its next auction, which starts on January 12 at 5 p.m. m. ITS T. Some of the artwork for sale is unique, such as the pixel map of Dracula’s Castle.
Other NFTs up for auction are clips from various Castlevania games, such as the original and Simon’s Quest. Some of these NFTs focus on music, with background gameplay included. Others are full featured videos. Konami has a full list of NFTs on their auction page.
Konami Jumps on the NFT Trend
Konami, the company behind major franchises like Metal Gear Solid and Silent Hill, jumps on the trend with its new Konami Memorial NFT series.
A set of 14 non-fungible tokens will be sold at an auction scheduled for January 12-14. The majority of the collection consists of gifs of gameplay snippets from the first three Castlevania games on various home computers, with the rest being renderings of in-game maps and art versions originally used in Castlevania: Circle of the Moon.
Scheduled to be sold through the OpenSea NFT marketplace, those who make the initial purchases will have their usernames memorialized on the Komani website.
While many North American gamers associate the Castlevania franchise with Nintendo’s entertainment system, only two upcoming NFTs commemorate the NES.
Others specifically mention the Famicom, the Japanese version of Nintendo’s first game console, and there’s even a reference to Vampire Killer, an alternate port of the game for the MSX line of home computers that dispensed with the series branding.
People who purchase a Konami NFT will be listed on the publisher’s website as the first buyer of each artwork from February through at least December 31. Konami’s website includes instructions on how to prepare for the auction, how to create a cryptocurrency account, and a question and answer session.
Answering key questions like “what is Blockchain?” and “what are NFTs?” Konami also revealed that it will never sell these exact NFTs again, though it said it may sell very similar ones in the future.
It was clear that Konami was going to go ahead with its NFT plans even back in February, when the company offered more classic art from its IPs to “preserve game content.”
Whether or not Konami really does keep game preservation at the core of its NFT plans, many online gamers are unhappy with the use of blockchain technology in their favorite titles. Previous concepts from companies like Ubisoft Quartz were immediately criticized by many due to the controversial nature of NFTs.
It’s not just fans who aren’t too happy about Konami’s interest in NFT markets. In February, when news broke that Konami was moving ahead with its NFT plans, Bayonetta developer PlatinumGames slammed the creator of Silent Hill and Castlevania, calling out other game companies for their “greedy behavior.”
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