Could blockchain be good for gaming? Has the weight of a 90s Nintendo legend
In the early 1990s, game industry executive Tony Herman was sitting on a long flight to Kyoto, Japan. After publishing a report questioning the then-widely accepted dogma that only Japanese studios could make good games, word spread from his US office to the Japanese headquarters.
Though he didn’t know it then — Harman was going on a date with destiny. After arriving in Japan, he had only one place to go: Nintendo’s global headquarters, to meet the man behind the legend: Shigeru Miyamoto — one of the creators of the Italian plumber named Mario.
But what was Harman doing at Nintendo headquarters? His goal was to convince the Japanese gaming giant’s bigwigs to do something they’d never done before: give someone else the keys to one of their fiercely protected IPs. Donkey Kong, would be correct. Harman recalled the exact words he told Nintendo in an interview with nft now: “If you give me a Western developer, […] One of the Nintendo characters, and the same budget as the Japanese company, I’ll make you a number one hit.”
As those words echoed throughout the halls of Nintendo’s Minami-ku headquarters, a bittersweet ceremony began. And finally, Web3, where Harman is looking to apply his vision today.
The State of Blockchain Gaming on the Web3
For die-hard mainstream gamers, there’s no gaming trend more reprehensible than the new blockchain gaming movement. The concept of play-to-earn (P2E) games has quickly changed from a work norm to what some would describe as a chore.
Even blockchain game developers are tired of the models popularized by such titles Axis Infinity. But that can be a good thing – and it’s attracting the kind of people Web3 needs in its early stages: committed developers with a proven track record.
With so much at stake, the blockchain gaming space doesn’t have to wait for a newcomer on the scene Axi or even Flappy Bird. The task of bringing blockchain gaming into a new light rests on the shoulders of those who have delivered triple-A games to a mainstream audience.
But what does this “experience” include? Unsurprisingly, understanding requires an immersion in gaming history.
Journey to Nintendo HQ
Let’s get back to Harman. Why did Nintendo want to give a western third-party studio access to one of its closely guarded IPs? Simply put, he thought it would be more efficient to create a game from the ground up for the US market than to localize one of Nintendo’s in-house titles. With so much of Nintendo’s storytelling focused on Japanese folklore and culture, it was only inevitable that important nuances of their stories would be lost in translation. From a more practical perspective, it will also go a long way towards helping the brand further establish itself in the Western market – or so Harman claims.
Once Nintendo’s top brass graciously agreed to the request, Harman set to work assembling his team, starting at British game development studio Rare. At the time, the studio was best known for the title Battletoads and licensed works based on characters such as Spider-Man and Freddy Krueger. Now, it had access to video game royalty: Donkey Kong, the character that arguably started Nintendo’s meteoric rise to fame in the 1980s.
To say they made the most of that opportunity would be an understatement. Herman’s pitch was the result of the game Donkey Kong Country, arguably 1994’s Game of the Year, and one of the Super Nintendo’s most beloved games of all time. Rare also eventually went on to create some of Nintendo’s most beloved titles for Nintendo’s next platform, the N64. golden eyes, Perfect DarkAnd Conquer has a bad fur day Still holds a solid place in today’s zeitgeist.
As for Harman, he looked to steward another groundbreaking project for Nintendo. “I wanted to go to the next level. So I made the first 3D game on the Nintendo console which was a successful hit. it was Star Fox” Harman said.
Reality bites
Now let’s barrel roll to 2022. What could Harman be up to today? After being involved with the development of the first Dr Grand Theft AutoHe keeps up his innovative streak by titling projects like Crackdown And APB — the latter of which was hailed by gaming content creators as “Fortnite before Fortnite” — or a game whose ideas flew too close to the sun for a gaming public that wasn’t quite ready. In Harman’s words, it was “ten years too early.”
Unfortunately, given the trajectory of the gaming industry in the early 2010s, Harman began to burn out. “I’ve been really disappointed in the industry since it was initially free-to-play. You’d expect small game developers to have a Harvard MBA Business Analytics to create a successful game because only one to three percent [the audience] Users are paid,” he said. “You need all this analytics to figure out who they are and how to get as much money from them, and that disrupts the whole revenue generation for the game.”
It wasn’t until recently that Herman felt like jumping back into the fire — a decision largely fueled by the developing NFT market and infrastructure, and a longtime love for user-generated content (UGC). Enter Universe, the latest project from Harman-led Random Games. It is a decentralized sci-fi franchise offering its collectors a wealth of high-quality 3D assets. The plan? Harman created great games throughout his career to give collectors the same opportunity. No questions were asked.
Of course, all you have to do to get in on the action is buy a Universe Letters NFT straight-up. After that, you’ll get free access to Universe’s suite of video game designs, as well as the chance to create your own titles using Universe assets, which Harman insists will be “given” to Early Collection holders to use. “We model our characters, all the textures. , remove all rigging, all animations [Unioverse holders]And [we] Ask what else they need and help build those resources,” Harman said.
All these universe IPs are in service of further development. While the Universe Team will receive a cut of the holder’s profits, the smart contract underlying each NFT will ensure that players do not lose any of their own revenue. “We only create content for our community. We purposely don’t do any in-game transactions because we don’t want to give anything to Google or Apple’s team,” Harman said. “So, none of the money is being taken out of the system. Our early backers expect the increased value of the characters and they will make all the money from the distribution of the characters.”
writing on the wall
In some ways, the entry of Harman and other gaming industry veterans into Web3 can be seen as a way to escape some of the bigger problems plaguing the current gaming industry. In particular, large corporations determine how behind-the-scenes people are compensated.
Although Harman describes its origins with pride Donkey Kong Country As one of his most cherished career highlights, he also cites the reality he faces after such a feat. Despite leading the launch and development of one of Nintendo’s most cherished games, Harman faced a pay cut at the end of the fiscal year due to the way Nintendo made less money overall that year. “My salary was cut that year because they said the company’s performance was not that good. It just wasn’t fair to my team. I went to the meeting [learning this] time to watch Donkey Kong Country [fly off the shelves.]”
For Herman, starting a franchise in a decentralized manner is the clearest way to ensure that subsequent creators and project leads don’t suffer the same fate. “If you look at Stan Lee, if he had literally only gotten a five percent commission from all his work in his lifetime, he would have died with a lot more than a few million dollars,” Herman said. And the key lies in smart contracts — perhaps one of the most revolutionary functionalities offered to creators using the NFT platform. “Doing smart contracts is the right thing to do. You should be able to participate proportionally to your success,” Harman said.
If anything, that simple fact alone should be enough to drive even the most jaded gamer to give blockchain games a shot. Games are art too, and the artists behind these works deserve fair compensation for their work.
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