So apparently the earlier “early access soft launch” has decided to drop the soft launch part. Blankos Block Party, the multiplayer game-building title with NFT character designs, confirmed at E3 that the game has officially started early access on PC as a free-to-play title. Above and beyond that, the majority of the game’s announcements were all about NFT-powered partnerships: EDM artist Deadmau5 is going to have a presence in the game in some form; The Marathon Clothing is going to arrive soon; London fashion brand Burberry will have a Blanko in-game.
John Linden, CEO of developer Mythical Games, has explained the studio’s push for NFTs in gaming in an interview, calling other in-game purchases “a lease or licensing agreement, with no capability to transfer or sell” while Blankos’ digital offerings are curated, saleable, have a provenance, and are further customizable. The studio is even working on making its own game engine that allows other developers to tap into the NFT market, and has secured $75M in seed funding to make it happen. And people are indeed buying: A limited-run Kitsune Blanko figure was apparently sold out in just under two minutes.
As for the game itself, there was an E3 trailer touting PC early access, which we’ve got embedded below.
