All investment/financial opinions expressed by NFTevening.com are not recommendations.
This article is educational material.
As always, do your own research before making any kind of investment.
NFT Racing Game Gets ‘The Fast and the Furious’ Author!
“The Fast and the Furious” writer David Ayer is driving the Tokyo drift into Web3 with an NFT racing game. He is partnering with Feature.io, an NFT-focused technology platform, to produce an immersive car racing experience called “Lollipop”. What can we expect from the collaboration?
Image credit: MensXP
What do we know about the racing game Lollipop NFT?
The project will run on the Layer 2 blockchain Polygon. It will combine “elements of episodic streaming, gaming and professional sports”. This approach fits into what Feature.io CEO Steven Ilous believes is the future of media entertainment.
While we don’t know exactly how NFTs will play into things, Ilous sees Lollipop as an opportunity “to really create next-gen content that’s built for how audiences consume content these days”. The game will be built on Unreal Engine 5 and will presumably feature powerful cars, death-defying stunts and the brilliant explosions that have made “The Fast and the Furious” a global phenomenon.
Ayer stated, “I’m excited to be working with the team at Polygon on ‘Lollipop.’ As a filmmaker, I’ve always been interested in exploring new forms of storytelling and entertainment, and blockchain games are the perfect opportunity to do just that.” I can’t wait for players to experience the thrill of racing in this innovative new game.”
The Feature.io team has yet to announce a release date for the game.
Image credit: Feature.io
NFTs or digital collectibles?
Both Ayer and Ilous have been careful to use the term “digital collectibles” in favor of non-fungible tokens, or NFTs. Their goal is to appeal to a massive audience, and some people still dislike NFTs. For whatever reason, this demographic of people is more willing to buy an NFT if they are labeled as “digital collectibles” instead.
While we don’t have many details about the game yet, we can safely assume that players will collect in-game assets such as NFTs. From there, they will presumably trade, buy and sell goods using Polygon’s Ethereum scaling solution to near zero. Ryan Wyatt, the president of Polygon, is also excited about the project. He called it “truly groundbreaking” in a recent interview.
Are NFT games the next big thing?
Many are betting big on blockchain games. In 2021, investors spent $3.7 billion in metaverse and blockchain gaming projects. This figure almost doubled to $7.6 billion in 2022. So far, 2023 has gotten off to a good start with over $500 million invested in the sector in a down year for the markets.
Image credit: Dappradar
Many large projects are building games right now aimed at NFT players. Yuga Labs is working with Otherside, YouTube mega-influencer Dr Disrespect is releasing a first-person shooter called “Deadrop” soon, and the highest-grossing Pokemon IP of all time is posting job ads for an executive with extensive Web3 experience.
The future looks bright for blockchain gaming. It is therefore no surprise that game developers are using existing franchises to bring audiences over to Web3. Dom Toretto, the protagonist of “The Fast and the Furious” franchise, once said, “I don’t have friends, I have family.” By bringing David Ayer into Web3, it feels like our family just got a little stronger.
