Atari has announced a partnership with Wax to bring digital collectibles to the market. Classic box art from old school Atari games will be brushed up and animated as collectible non-fungible tokens. The tokens will come in six different rarities, ranging from the static common ones to ultra rare collectors editions that also show gameplay.
The artwork is based on classic Atari titles. Think about games like Tempest, Breakout, Asteroids and Centipede. Lesser known games like Off The Wall, Sky Diver, Flag Capture and Steeplechase are also part of the collection. It would make a lot of sense if Atari with distribute a copy of the classic game alongside the NFT, but there’s no mention of such a feature of the official website.
The Atari non-fungible tokens are really positioned as digital collectibles. Wax suggests the collectors can show their gallery on social media. However, it seems like there’s no utility beyond that. The collectibles will launch in a few weeks.
Surprising partnership
The partnership between Atari and Wax comes a bit of a surprise. Earlier this year Atari and Animoca Brands signed a deal for the exclusive global distribution rights for several licenses, including Asteroids, Centipede, Breakout and Adventure. However, Wax also mentions these games on their official website.
Where the collaboration between Atari and Animoca Brands is based on gaming, Wax and Atari work together on collectibles. “Atari is working with both us and Wax”, Robby Yung from Animoca Brands explained to Play to Earn. “The difference is that we are making blockchain games and NFT’s based on various intellectual properties from Atari, whereas Wax is only making NFTs.”
The King of NFTs
Wax is really positioning itself as a blockchain for digital collectibles. CEO William Quigley even said that Wax puts focus on non-fungible tokens. In blog post he furthermore added that ‘every consumer product that can not be eaten, will become an NFT’. The boss of Wax sees blockchain maximalism as a dying philosophy. He believes every blockchain will gets its own specialism. In the case of Wax that’s collecting and trading NFTs, but for Ethereum that could very well be decentralized finance.
One of the most popular collectibles are the ones from Garbage Pail Kids. However, very slowly more gaming projects are joining as well. With Prospectors they already have one hit game, but there’s more coming. For example, Hodl God is a battle royale game that uses the Wax blockchain. With Dark Country there’s another trading card game as well. Last week Tribal Books was announced.
Robert Hoogendoorn is a gamer and blockchain enthusiast. He got in touch with crypto in 2014, but the fire really lit in 2017. Professionally he’s a content optimization expert and worked for press agencies and video production companies, always with a focus on the video games & tech industry. He’s a communication consultant for blockchain start-ups and writes not only for Play to Earn, but also other dapp websites and tech magazines.
