Crossovers have done wonders for the entertainment industry. Marvel has created franchises out of them and Star Trek has never shied away from them, bringing characters from one series into spinoffs. But crossovers are about to take over the growing world of non-fungible tokens, or NFTs.
While recent attention has focused on the high prices that art collectors are now paying for NFTs of digital imagery, other collectors have been snapping up digital cards and packs supported by blockchain technology. They’ve bought NBA and Garbage Pail Kids cards. They’ve collected retro video game boxes from Atari, and they’ve even bought and sold pictures of William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy.
Other NFT users have been playing a kind of virtual game of Monopoly. Upland is a blockchain-based game which allows players to tour San Francisco, Manhattan, Fresno, and Brooklyn, and buy digital property. They pay for the property using UPX, a digital coin, and can earn revenue from their virtual assets. The more they own, the bigger their collections become and the more revenue they can generate. The game hosts live events and will soon open virtual cafés where players can interact and talk about their NFT holdings.
According to Dirk Lueth, one of the game’s founders, Upland currently has about 22,000 daily active users and expects to reach 100,000 monthly active users soon.
Until now, though, the worlds of platforms like Upland have been separate from the words of digital Garbage Pail Kids or art. On April 6, Upland will start to integrate assets from a different NFT world into the game. Collectors of Blockchain Heroes, an NFT-based card set, will be able to use their collections in Upland.
“We’ve taken the Blockchain Heroes and transformed them into the art style of Upland,” Leuth explained on the Nifty Show, a video podcast hosted by Blockchain Heroes’ creators, Joel Comm and Travis Wright. Users will be able to import their cards through a portal into Upland and use them as their game counters. Some cards will be rarer than others, and users will be able to buy and sell them in the game, adding a new layer of gameplay to the platform.
The crossover plans don’t stop at collectible card crossovers or at importing unique game counters though. Other properties will bring extra functions, including the ability to add virtual decorations to the game’s virtual properties. “Maybe one day you import a car from F1 Delta, then you can use that as a racing car,” said Lueth.”We always said we’re going to have car races.”
The rise of NFTs have already created a new world for collectibles and for digital art. The start of crossovers between NFT worlds promises a whole new era. Upland Collectibles go on sale April 6th at Upland.cards.