Konami To Push Onward With NFTs

About a month ago, Konami announced its intent to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the Castlevania series with the launch of a 14-piece NFT collection auction. These NFTs included visual art pieces, original pixel art, BGM tracks, and recorded gameplay clips.

While it wasn’t the first company to jump aboard the NFT train and it certainly won’t be the last, the company would once again mention NFTs in their financial earnings report. Within the report, as the company goes over their future digital entertainment plans, they’re quoted as mentioning “We will also be selling Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) in an effort to preserve content that has been loved by our customers as commemorative art.”

While it’s not entirely surprising given that it’s a current hot trend of potential money to make, it is right on the heels of companies taking a step back from NFTs. The controversial idea and implementation of NFTs in the gaming industry have been met with plenty of disapproval from consumers and even some developers alike. Team17’s announcement of Worms-themed NFTs caught a lot of flak from teams beneath it and caused them to retract their plans. Even EA’s CEO, Andrew Wilson, has seemingly taken a step back from NFTs after sounding warmer to the idea last year.

Then again, we’ve seen companies like Square Enix mention an interest in NFTs, and Ubisoft seems fully enough into the idea to gain bad press by saying gamers “don’t get it.” As much widespread attention as the Team17 incident received, much bigger companies are still evaluating if NFTs will be a lucrative venture.

If we are just going to talk about Konami though, the Castlevania NFT auction was an absolute success. The company sold all 14 pieces for $162,000. There’s still no telling if future endeavors will be as successful if not more than this Castlevania auction. Konami may have sold all of the pieces and made a pretty penny, but so far only one of these pieces was resold. Unless most of the buyers were the biggest Castlevania enthusiasts, there is no guarantee that people will be as interested in buying these if no one else is looking to buy them.

Then again, I’m no expert when it comes to NFTs and their potential valued scarcity. Whether they turn into a passing fad or the next level of microtransactions remains to be seen. For now, as Castlevania fans worry how the future of the series will be celebrated, I simply begrudgingly sit in silence and foolishly hope that Konami forgets that this year is also the 35th anniversary of Metal Gear.