People Spent $9K on Pixelmon NFTs. Then They Saw the Art

that is Pokemon Of NFT games. Set in the world of Eden, Pixelmon is an open-world RPG that captures, trades, and sells Pixelmon creatures as non-fungible tokens (NFTs). When the game is released at the end of the year, Pixelmon NFT owners will be given land that they can use to create living spaces and set up shops to become in-game merchants. To fund the project, Pixelmon developers released a collection of 10,000 Pixelmon NFTs in February.

They managed to raise $ 70 million. This is usually the budget associated with the blockbuster PlayStation and Xbox games.

But the project became an obstacle. After raising all that money, the team announced Pixelmon, which will inhabit the world. Since then, the project has been a laugh on social media.

First, some context. An NFT collection with 10,000 NFTs is not uncommon.Please refer to Boring Ape Yacht Club The most popular example. However, for primary sales that people buy directly from creators, the price is usually less than 0.1 Ethereum ($ 280). Prices can only rise slightly in secondary markets such as OpenSea. (Or, more generally, it will be zero.)

Pixelmon was different. It was an incredibly hyped project and accompanied by an ambitious open world game. The team behind the project sold the collection through a Dutch auction. Prices started at 3 Ethereum (about $ 9,000) and dropped by 0.1 Ethereum every 10 minutes until the last NFT was gone. The collection sold out in an hour and the NFT sold from 3 ethers to 2.4 ethers ($ 7,000).

The team has raised over $ 70 million from the sale. A stylish and voxelized Pixelmon monster was being promoted on Twitter. Demo video Investors and speculators have bet big by claiming to display real gameplay footage.

And on February 26th, “obviously” came. NFT art collections often have a scheduled mint date (that is, a primary sale) and a release date a few days later. After creating the NFT, the placeholder art will appear in the owner’s wallet. If you clarify, you can see which NFT was acquired. It’s a bit like a Pokemon card. Various NFTs in the same collection are evaluated based on the rarity of their characteristics, just as holographic Pokemon cards are more valuable than standard cards. Therefore, publishing is basically the same as opening a booster pack. To see the cards you get.

The art gained by the owner, who often spent over $ 9,000, was bad enough to be an instant meme. It also lowered the price of the collection. As of this writing, the lowest price (the cheapest NFT in the set is listed on the OpenSea Marketplace) is .39 ether ($ 1,500).

Pixelmon is one of many NFT projects aimed at more than just providing art. Many people are obsessed with play-to-ear games and need NFTs for characters and monsters to play. Pokemon is a common inspiration for such games, including Axie Infinity. This is the most popular P2E game ever.. Other collections are also trying to create value by creating a digital world, the “Metaverse,” where NFTs can be used to create one-of-a-kind avatars and grant ownership of virtual real estate. .. However, as with cryptocurrencies and standard NFT transactions, prices will fluctuate.

Cyber, the creator of Pixelmon’s pseudonym, admitted that publishing the project on the Discord server didn’t work. (Most NFT businesses are done on Discord.)

“I’m not going to sugar coat it-we made a terrible mistake,” Cyber ​​wrote to Discord. “This is unacceptable. We felt pressured to push rivals. In reality, we weren’t ready to push the artwork. This doesn’t represent the brand, this We’ve disappointed a lot of people with Ribir, so we’ll fix this. ”

He said $ 2 million will be spent on a complete refurbishment of art. The fully pseudonym Pixelmon team is also affiliated with Magic Media, a video game development studio.

“No matter how long it takes, no matter how much FUD [fear, uncertainty and doubt] If it does occur, we promise a long-term vision and all that is stated in the light paper. ” He tweeted..

But that’s not the end of the story. The release of Pixelmon art was a failure to release and created an icon, or at least a meme, on the turtle creature “Kevin” who became the face of the release. (“Kevin” is the actual name given to him by the Pixelmon developer.)

Kevin hasn’t just become a social media meme. Kevin has become his own asset. The lowest price (that is, the cheapest one you can buy) for Pixelmon’s NFT collection is 0.39 ether ($ 1,140). The minimum charge for Kevin Pixelmon is 4.75 ether ($ 13,900). Not only that, Kevin has become a star in his own derivative art collection.

There is The Lives of Kevin. This is basically a set of motivational posters with Kevin’s head overlaid on the head of an iconic figure. Some were sold as high as 0.295 ether ($ 860). Next is Kevin Punks, a play on CryptoPunks. This is a set of 6-digit 8-bit NFTs on a regular basis. The current minimum price for Kevin Punks is 0.85, or just under $ 2,500.

This is an example of how NFT commoditizes memetic culture-only in the afternoon.

Not everyone was angry with the Pixelmon they received. The Pixelmon roadmap states that browser-based games will be available at the end of the year. Some expect the ship to be corrected by then.