Through popular franchises, the entertainment landscape has gradually shifted toward capitalizing on Web3. However, the beginning of this shift has not been without difficulties.
From a legal standpoint, there is ongoing litigation between Quentin Tarantino and Miramax, Nike NKE -0.9 percent and StockX, and Hermes/Mason Rothschild.
As a result, NFT issuers and holders must understand the complexities involved in what is and isn’t permitted once an NFT changes hands. For instance, once purchased, the underlying rights of an NFT are typically not transferred by the issuer. Instead, particular rights for displaying and exhibiting the work are granted.
A full copyright holder is granted certain rights under ownership under federal law. The ability to reproduce and distribute the work, as well as introduce derivative projects, is included. In general, NFT holders cannot do this and then fully commercialize their NFTs, which brings the issue of ownership to the forefront.
With the sector still in its infancy in terms of understanding and application of Web3, several issues must be ironed out.
What is clear is the enormous potential for increased revenue. Marvel, for instance, has been selling physical merchandise for decades and considers it a tangible revenue stream. Web3 has now enabled the company to sell items like digital figures, key scenes, and even potential original movie scripts, all of which are tracked by the blockchain to ensure authenticity. Unlike physical memorabilia, however, Marvel could earn royalties from each subsequent sale of their product, thanks to blockchain.
In May of last year, Fox became the first studio to launch an entire blockchain division, with at least a $100 million investment.
According to Axios, Scott Greenberg, the CEO of Fox’s Blockchain Creative Labs division, sees NFTs and other digital assets as an opportunity to create more fan engagement not only across all of Fox’s properties, such as Fox Sports, Fox Entertainment, and Fox News but also across third-party franchises.
With a significant and potentially complete shift from physical products to digital assets on the horizon, the possibilities for virtual world creation become limitless. Because tangible space is no longer required in the digital sphere, monetization opportunities abound.
Physical to digital
One of the changes we’ve seen companies make in the last decade is the creation of social media marketing campaigns centered on their products and services. That shift was embraced by Hollywood as well.
Some media companies have gone so far as to invest heavily in intent-data and data remodeling solutions for enhancing customer experience, efficiency, and conversion rates online.
There is a gold rush for businesses to invest in this new age of data and implement emerging technologies. They will be critical drivers for advertising, customer and client journeys, inventory and product management, new technologies, and overall market analysis as we move toward Web3.
Hunter Bessell is the founder of Colony, a rapidly expanding NFT company that is home to the Colonists, a sold-out collection of 25,000 customizable avatars that will be playable in the company’s upcoming blockchain game Colony Online.
The Colonists NFT was the most transferred NFT on the Ethereum blockchain the week it was released (due to the large collection size of 25,000 NFTs), and the project is still growing. At the current price of ETH at $3,200, the collectible characters have over 780 ETH traded on the secondary market, which equates to more than $2 million. The collection has already seen single pieces resell for upwards of $8,000 at the time of purchase, and the project as a whole has over 5,600 unique holders.
The project’s innovative aspect is that it is arguably strong enough to have gone down the path of being an online game without the inclusion of NFTs and cryptocurrency. Bessell, on the other hand, saw the market’s potential future and proceeded to develop in this manner instead.
By using the Ethereum blockchain as the underlying technology for our in-game economy, people will be able to earn provably rare digital assets (NFTs) and eventually sell them to other people who need them for the in-game benefit or the social status linked with owning them. He stated.
These collectibles will always be owned by the people who have them in their crypto wallets, which means the game servers will not always need to exist for the items to continue being bought and sold on blockchain-based digital marketplaces, he added. That is the true power of NFTs; true ownership of your digital items.
In the future, there will be trust-fund kids whose grandparents earned rare NFTs that will eventually sell for millions even after the game is shut down.
This is the future of collectibles, and we’re already seeing multi-million-dollar sales with popular collections such as Bored Ape Yacht Club and CryptoPunks that don’t even have in-game utility.
Colony Online aspires to be a “spiritual successor” to Disney’s Toontown Online, focusing on streetwear. According to reports, the game will include mechanics that make use of NFTs and blockchain technology in novel ways. One of these features is your drip score, which is an NFT-based rarity metric. Your Colonist’s drip score is determined by the rarity of your equipped in-game items and provides you with play-to-earn rewards that vary depending on where you rank on the drip leaderboard.
The team believes that features such as their drip score will help gamify the repetition of collecting more cosmetic items and will drive an interesting meta regarding how NFTs are valued in the in-game economy. The game’s creators also intend to create strong incentives for players to keep their in-game cryptocurrency.
The opportunities for Hollywood in emerging or established fanbases may be greater than currently imagined, as concepts such as Colonists depict an ecosystem that can be used to not only capitalize on existing fanbases but also merge new fans into the existing economy.
