Japanese Gaming Giant Konami Set to Launch NFT Marketplace

Japanese video game developer and publisher Konami announced plans to launch an NFT marketplace for in-game trading, in a press release Friday morning.

The team spokesperson shed some light on those plans, stating “We have been conducting research and development to incorporate the latest technology into games and contents, and plan to launch a service where players can trade their in-game NFTs (digital items) through a unique distribution platform using blockchain.”

Konami will now begin recruiting to fill positions to build that marketplace, along with services "to provide new experiences such as Web3 and Metaverse”.

Background on Konami

For a quick background on Konami, the Japanese company headquartered in Tokyo is behind major games such as Metal Gear, Castlevania, Frogger, Yu-Gi-Oh, and Dance Dance Revolution. Beyond video games, the entertainment conglomerate also produces slot machines, anime, trading cards, arcade cabinets, and more.

To give a sense of their market size, they recorded over 262B JPY in revenue in 2020 ($1.7B at current exchange rates).

Konami is not new to NFTs, having previously launched its "Konami Memorial NFT collection" as a set of fourteen digital artwork NFTs tied to its Castlevania games.

Market Reactions

This news was much to the chagrin of the anti-NFT gaming base, evidenced by this headline from PC Gamer: "Oh no, Konami's looking for experts to build its 'WEB3 and Metaverse' projects."

Meanwhile, notable NFT Twitter personality and Limit Break founder Gabe Leydon went on the record about the Konami news, stating "Web3 adoption in gaming is happening next year."

While there will continue to be pushback from the traditional gaming space, this is another major domino to fall in the adoption of NFTs for gaming, one of the fundamental use cases of this new and growing technology. And that adoption is growing rapidly, as evidenced by the $7B raised by blockchain games and metaverse projects in 2022, according to data from DappRadar.

Author Bio

Tyler Warner

Tyler is a high-volume NFT trader, having reached the top 100 in NFT sales revenue using NFTBank’s rankings, a Pengu maxi (in Luca we trust), and a writer for Lucky Trader. Tyler’s writing spans market analysis, news breakdowns, project ecosystem overviews, and web3 opinion pieces.

Disclaimer: The author or members of the Lucky Trader staff may own NFTs discussed in this post. Furthermore, the information contained on this website or the Lucky Trader mobile application is not intended as, and shall not be understood or construed as financial advice. AI may have assisted in the creation of this content.