The legendary Stormtroopers characters from the original Star Wars are coming to the Solana blockchain. MixMob, a Solana-based gaming platform, just acquired the licensing rights to the Stormtrooper intellectual property (IP) from the 1977 film “Star Wars: A New Hope.”
The iconic IP will be integrated into the MixMob ‘Racer 1’ card racing game as NFTs in the second quarter of this year. Stormtroopers, the soldiers from the Star Wars franchise, hold cultural significance throughout the world, and their arrival to Solana is another win for the blockchain’s thriving gaming ecosystem.
Race 1 is the “world’s first card strategy racing game.” It combines elements of Mario Kart and Hearthstone and lets players express crypto culture through gaming. Users can bet, stake, raise robots, climb the leaderboard, and win rewards like NFTs, crypto, and airdrops.
While many studios and gaming platforms have created characters off the backs of their NFT offerings, MixMob is dedicated to partnering with established intellectual properties to foster its gaming ecosystem on Solana. According to the report, MixMob plans to close three more licensing deals this year — though no specific IPs were mentioned.
The move comes as $SOL, the native token of the Solana blockchain, has been soaring recently. As of Monday morning, $SOL was up around 23% on the week and nearly 475% on the year. $MXM, MixMob’s governance and value accrual token, has also been rising. It’s up around 27% over the past 24 hours, according to data from CoinGecko.
As Web3 gaming continues to grow, MixMob’s strategy of incorporating iconic IPs into its game to lure new users and reward older ones could pay off. The introduction of Stormtroopers should at least enrich the gaming experience on Solana, which Web3 gamers will likely appreciate.
Web3 Gaming On the Rise
For fans of the original Star Wars films and Web3 gaming, the move from MixMob to acquire Stormtroopers IP is exciting and should bring a whole new dynamic to Racer 1. But this isn’t the first time we’ve seen Web3 gaming have a moment in the sun. Over the past six months, our news has been full of stories about blockchain-based games and studios.
Here’s a review of the top Web3 gaming headlines from the end of last year:
- September. Portalcoin Web3 Gaming Project Blows Up On X
- November. Neo Tokyo Booms in Value as Web3 Gaming Has Its Moment
- November. Animoca Brands, Ubisoft Partner for Web3 Gaming Push
- October. Web3 Gaming Projects Secure $600M in Q3 Funding: Report
- October. Immutable Teams with Amazon to ‘Supercharge’ Web3 Gaming
- October. Korean Gaming Giant Partners with Chainlink for Interoperable Web3 Gaming
Blockchain-based play-to-earn (P2E) games have several benefits to users, not least of which is they afford them the opportunity to earn crypto from their gameplay. They also give players full rights over their digital assets (NFTs), which they can trade or sell on secondary marketplaces.
Many people in the space predict that as soon Web3 games become as compelling as traditional games, they’ll begin to soar in popularity. With major gaming platforms like MixMob investing in universally recognized IP to enhance gameplay, it is likely only a matter of time before Web3 gaming catches up to the competition.
When or if that happens, gaming will likely become one of the biggest use-cases of Web3 technology in existence.