Ubisoft is not backing down despite backlash, Disney & VeVe announce another NFT collection – NFT Weekly

NFTs have continued gaining traction; you would think they are only getting started. Industry experts believe the sector will see more interest even after recording staggering figures over the last few months.

Here's a roundup of the top stories from the NFT niche that you might have missed heading into the festive holiday.

BGA report reveals NFT gaming accounted for more than a fifth of total NFT trading volume in Q3

A report from the Blockchain Gaming Alliance published earlier this week has shown that the NFT gaming sub-niche generated a total of $2.23 billion in the third quarter of the year. The figure represents 22% of the total NFT trading volume recorded in this period. A majority (68%) of the respondents involved conceded that play-to-earn has been the most significant factor driving the sector's growth.

The BGA survey involved 212 professionals representing 118 different projects or entities within the blockchain industry. 61% of these participants were BGA members. The middle-aged demography accounted for the bulk of the participants.

The report also mentioned metaverse-related activity, noting that virtual land sales raked in $42.6 million. Last month, the total market cap for virtual world decentralized apps set a record high of $4.6 billion.

Ubisoft saga

Game maker keen on pursuing NFT Plans despite receiving backlash

Popular French game maker behind Far Cry and Assassin's Creed Ubisoft will push on with its NFT foray, notwithstanding a poor start. Ubisoft's technical director in charge of blockchain Didier Genevois insisted that the game development company will not shelve its NFT plans.

Genevois noted that the firm had received positive and negative feedback from its client base after revealing its NFT endeavor. In an interview with Decrypt, he added that non-fungible tokens are a drastic change, and as such, their adoption would take time  Genevois explained that the company would not abandon its three pillars – responsible use of technology, commitment to a safe environment for users, and exclusive use of energy-efficient blockchains.

Sluggish start

The statement comes following low NFT sales and negative comments on YouTube under the Ubisoft Quartz trailer. The announce trailer shared on 8th December has 548 likes and 11,000 dislikes (data obtained using browser extension).

Ubisoft chose the energy-efficient blockchain Tezos, but there have been questions around the energy costs involved, with the consensus being the project is unfeasible. Climate concerns surrounding the campaign have also made some gamers and even a French trade union label the campaign as redundant.

At the start of the week, only 15 NFTs from the game developer had been sold, grossing around $400 according to a tweet posted by Liz Edwards, a senior character artist for Apex Legends. The company's insistence in the campaign shows the company's belief in the value of NFTs in games – a view shared by Electronic Arts.

Dynamic NFTs

Ubisoft also announced it had partnered with Aleph.im to pursue “dynamic NFTs.” The latter will offer decentralized storage for the former's assets on the Quartz NFT platform.

Image source: Twitter

The dynamic NFTs dubbed “Digits” can be put on sale on the Rarible and Objkt marketplaces or be used by players in Tom Clancy Ghost Recon Breakpoint game. Thanks to Aleph. im's technology, current owners of these digits can access details of the previous owners, including their names and game achievements. The first tokens offered on the platform were from the Ghost Recon franchise.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl developer cancels NFT plans

Not long after sharing plans to add NFTs into its upcoming game, the Heart of Chernobyl, last Wednesday, GSC Game World, the gaming company behind S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, was forced to make a U-turn decision. The company had earlier stated that it would introduce NFTs, which would serve as a revenue stream to improve the game.

The announcement was met with negative feedback, forcing the GSC Game World team to take down the post on Twitter. Citing criticism and backlash from its gaming community, the developer notified its users that the game would not feature anything related to NFTs. The company also shared an apology to its users, adding, “We know that you wish only the best for our game, and we appreciate it.”

Disney and VeVe announce an NFT Collectibles based on Mickey Mouse

This week, California-based multinational entertainment Disney and its NFT partner VeVe announced the Mickey Mouse NFT collection. The collection marks the latest collection of digital items from the VeVe. Disney hinted that it would be working with VeVe in October and followed this up with NFT releases for The Simpsons and Star Wars last month.

A statue of Mickey Mouse

The releases are centered on Mickey Mouse, with the first series dubbed ‘Steamboat Willie.' Veve Digital wrote in the post that the collection will feature “a black and white 3D Steamboat Mickey standing proudly at the wheel of his ship”.The NFTs became available to the public on Wednesday, and items can be accessed on the VeVe app.

The marketplace previously announced a partnership with media franchise Marvel that gave birth to a series of NFTs based on Marvel characters. The two are currently looking to release Deadpool NFTs.

Instagram might be persuaded into NFT integration As NFT adoption grows

Instagram, the social media platform widely known for sharing photos and videos, is seemingly giving thought to NFTs and their integration. In a Q&A session, Adam Mosseri, the chief executive of the social media company, disclosed that an NFT integration was in its purview but remained adamant about sharing the exact plans.

“Nothing to announce yet, but we are definitely actively exploring NFTs and how we can make them more accessible to a wider audience. I think it's an interesting place where we can play, and also a way to hopefully help creators,” he shared on his IG story.

Several high-profile individuals and brands like Adidas, McDonald's, CNN, and Times have already flooded into the NFT sector to leverage its potential. It wouldn't be a surprise to see Instagram follow the same path and embrace the rapidly growing technology. Millions of users on the platform will be able to access NFTs should the social media company go ahead with the plans.

MetaMask hints at in-app NFT extension

It appears that MetaMask will be introducing an NFT section to its browser extension soon.

The popular non-custodial wallet application, whose userbase surpassed 21 million last month, recently teased that an in-app non-fungible tokens extension was in the pipelines on Twitter. It doesn't come as news, really, considering MetaMask has been at the heart of blockchain since its launch. There has, however, been no official communication or details of when the same will be implemented.

Christie's NFT Sales in 2021 touch $150 million

Christie's auction house has been synonymous with NFTs throughout the year. The British 225-year-old auction house revealed via a tweet that so far, it has recorded about $150 million worth of NFT sales in 2021, its most significant NFT sales figure in a year. The majority of the sales were from two artwork by artist Beeple.

The first is the EVERYDAYS series (the auction house's first-ever sale of non-physical art) which went for $69 million in March, while the other is the more recent HUMAN ONE which raked in $29 million during the November sale. Among other items, the British auction house also sold a set of non-fungible tokens from CryptoPunks. Overall, the legendary auction house is set to end the year with slightly over $7 billion in sales, representing a 54% and 22% upswing from 2020 and 2019, respectively.

Adidas Originals NFT collection gets off to a flying start on debut weekend

Last Friday, the first NFTs from the ‘Into the Metaverse' project by Adidas Original went on sale. The NFTS are really more of access tokens and less of collectibles. Owners will be able to redeem the corresponding physical products next year and can also receive a tangible copy of the PUNKS Comic Issue 2: X Marks the Drop.

The Adidas Originals: Into the Metaverse NFT collection on OpenSea

Sales of the collaborative NFT project (involving NFT pioneers PUNKS Comic, Bored Ape Yacht Club, and gmoney) peaked over the weekend. The project now has over 20,000 owners of Phase 1 NFT copies, which means less than 10,000 copies are left, with the sale set to end in June next year.

Rival footwear, apparel, and accessories manufacturer Nike has a similar project born of a partnership with collectibles creator RTFKT.

Social networking service Parler planning make entry into the NFT sector

Parler, the microblogging platform that claims to be a viewpoint-neutral social media, revealed on Monday that it was looking to enter the NFT sector. The platform, which promoted Melania Trump's NFT plans, shared a statement detailing that it will “continue building its digital offering with an NFT pipeline.”

The social site recently made news after Apple, Amazon, and Google's parent company Alphabet distanced themselves from the platform. The companies cited the failure of the app developers to deal with the inappropriate content from the January U.S. Capitol raid by Trump supporters.