Fortnite player sells Dookey Dash prize
It has been a little over a month since NFT behemoth Yuga Labs, the company behind Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and other top NFT collections, rolled out the skill-based game and NFT mint, Dookey Dash.
Sent on a quest by a dog called Gary, players have to navigate through the sewers, dodging obstacles and collecting power-ups in pursuit of a golden key.
For three weeks, holders of Sewer Pass NFTs competed for the top spot on the leaderboard and different prizes. Though BAYC and sister collection Mutant Ape Yacht Club holders could claim a free pass, buying one wasn’t cheap. The floor price currently stands at 2.4 Ether (ETH) ($3,888)
That’s a lot to play Temple Run in a toilet.
Yuga Labs reported the game was played more than 7.5 million times, equivalent to 80 years of game time and an average of about 28 hours per pass. Over 9,000 pass holders used $APE to purchase boosts, about one-third of active players. That said, it is not clear how many individual people played the game. Only 51% of the Sewer Passes have unique owners, meaning a whole lot of people are hoarding multiple passes.
A bonus round of the game, Dookey Dash: Toad Mode, closed its leaderboard on March 1.
The top prize, “The Key,” went to Kyle Jackson, better known as “Mongraal” on Twitch and YouTube. The 18-year-old professional Fortnite player, no doubt treasuring the very important loot he had just acquired, promptly listed The Key for sale on OpenSea.
Though he wanted 2,222 ETH ($3.6 million) for it, he ultimately sold it this week for 1,000 ETH ($1.6 million) to American scrap metal CEO Adam Weitsman.
According to Spencer Tucker, Yuga Labs’ new chief gamer officer, the game is just the beginning of how the company is thinking of connecting the dots between NFTs, gaming and community engagement.
“We want these things to be fun and weird, while also continuing to push the boundaries of what people perceive of the NFT industry,” he said.
“More than a jpeg, it’s all about utility, innovation, creating interactive experiences and hopefully onboarding new players to the web3 space.”
Dungeons & Dragons reverses NFT ban
Wizards of the Coast, the publisher of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), was forced to walk back proposed changes to its Open Game License (OGL) in January. For more than two decades, its OGL has allowed people to make D&D derivative projects, like graphic novels and plays.
Among the now-dropped changes was a ban on NFTs and other blockchain integrations. Ironic, considering Wizards of the Coast is owned by Hasbro, which itself debuted a Power Rangers NFT collection on the Wax blockchain last year.
The company also sought to introduce royalties payable by content creators of a certain size and new powers for Wizards to terminate the license of projects.
The drama impacted U.S. company Gripnr, which is building a D&D game with NFT integrations called The Glimmering. Its CEO and co-founder, Brent McCrossen, said he was “thrilled” that the updates had been reversed and that the published rules and lore of D&D had been moved to a Creative Commons license, making it freely available for use in perpetuity.
“We were not going to simply pack up our belongings and head home,” he said.
“NFTs and other potential emerging technologies are not a valid reason for revoking the OGL. We will object in a similar manner to any potential future attempts to restrict blockchain use; it is fundamental to GRIPNR’s core business,” he added.
While the Wizards of the Coast’s ban hasn’t ultimately panned out, it follows similar moves to ban NFT mods from Minecraft and Grand Theft Auto servers.
Yet whereas Grand Theft Auto makers Rockstar Games sent out cease and desist letters to builders shortly after the ban was announced, Mojang Studios — which is owned by Microsoft — doesn’t seem to be enforcing it, as NFT games still exist on Minecraft servers.
Square Enix to Launch NFT-based game Symbiogenesis
Elsewhere on the dark and violent crossroads between traditional and Web3 gaming, Square Enix has released more details about its upcoming NFT game. Symbiogenesis was first announced in November as an Ethereum-based game. It’s since switched to Polygon and plans to launch in Spring this year.
Among traditional game makers, Square Enix has been one of the most bullish on Web3. Its president, Yosuke Matsuda, doubled down on that position in his New Year’s letter in January where he predicted the growth of a more mature blockchain gaming market over the coming year.
