Yu Suzuki desires to promote you Virtua Fighter JPEGs as a result of NFTs refuse to die
On: March 18, 2023
Yu Suzuki, the legendary ex-Sega game designer who has but to be apprehended for his function in creating the Shenmue collection, has gotten a brand new gig. VGC stories that Suzuki has partnered up with Oasyx, “an NFT mission developed on the Oasys gaming blockchain,” to supply a collection of covetable JPEGs primarily based across the Virtua Fighter collection, which he created.
The partnership signifies that “followers can purchase limited-edition ‘VF MAYU’ NFTs” of “particular Virtua Fighter characters,” which shall be, uh, “incubated and revealed” subsequent month. That faintly gross-sounding course of will produce 1,000 Virtua Fighter NFTs—that includes “11 characters from the primary three Virtua Fighter video games”—for somebody, someplace to spend an excessive amount of cash on. They’re going to additionally “function a base for future Metaverse avatars,” due to course they’ll.
It is not solely clear what Suzuki’s function within the mission truly is. In a press release, he stated that he’s “supervising the event of OASYX’s distinctive worldview,” which I am not gonna faux is a press release overburdened with that means from where I am sitting, and that he is “delighted to mix revolutionary know-how within the type of blockchain-based NFTs, with three titles from the Virtua Fighter collection”. It sounds to me like Yu Suzuki’s function on this endeavour was telling Oasyx it may Yu Suzuki’s title on this endeavour. It seems like Sega hasn’t accomplished a lot past licensing out Virtua Fighter, both.
If there is a silver lining to all this, it is that Oasyx is a proof-of-stake, not proof-of-work, blockchain system. Which means it does not require the identical energy-guzzling, environment-wrecking computation energy {that a} community like Bitcoin does. Whereas the Virtua Fighter NFTs are eyeroll-worthy, they’re a minimum of not consuming the planet. So, take consolation in that, I suppose.
Final yr we stated that NFTs had been efficiently bullied out of mainstream video games, and I nonetheless assume that is true. However it’s at all times a little bit dispiriting to see the swamp bubble up and spit one thing out like this or Sq. Enix’s terrible-looking NFT game, even when it isn’t the identical NFT goldrush that appeared to briefly grab videogame firm C-suites all over the world for some time. And whereas I perceive that Suzuki has, it appears, signed a deal that rewards him for doing barely something in any respect, it is unhappy to see once-great creators put their names to this nonsense.
