Online Game ‘Metropolis Origins’ Is Like ‘Magic: The NFT Gathering’
Until a "Magic: The Gathering" NFT game materializes, "Metropolis Origins" might be the next best thing. Read more about the new blockchain game.
Dec. 10 2021, Published 1:14 p.m. ET
You can think of Metropolis Origins as the NFT version of the game Magic: The Gathering. In fact, developer Graeme Devine says Metropolis Origins, a sequel to the 1987 PC game Metropolis, was inspired by Magic, the hit collectible card game.
“We want it to be exactly like Magic: The Gathering, where you could buy a set and play the game,” Devine told GamesBeat last month. “That’s our entire model.”
In Metropolis Origins, “players must strategically outwit and outmaneuver their opponents by building decks of cards that are able to combat a wide variety of tactics and abilities that your opponent throws at you,” the website for the browser-based game explains. “Like other card games like Magic: The Gathering or Hearthstone, you build a deck from the cards you own; each card has abilities and stats that work alone or with other cards to give you the best arsenal of abilities to win the game.”
"Metropolis Origins" uses NFTs to let players “buy and sell assets easily.”
QXR Studios, the company behind the game, explains that players don't need to understand the blockchain to play Metropolis Origins, which is described as “an NFT collectible card game set in a cyberpunk world.” Players simply have to buy decks of cards as NFTs on the Atomic Hub platform using WAX, the Worldwide Asset eXchange.
The blockchain technology helps bring collectible cards games in the vein of Magic into the 21st century, QXR adds. “In the analog world, you could buy cards and trade them freely. That was harder to do once games became digital,” the company says in Metropolis Origins’ FAQ. “The blockchain and NFTs make it possible to buy and sell assets easily, and to limit the production of assets so that there is a clear framework of defined rarity, identifiable ownership and transparent transactions.”
The developers behind Metropolis Origins emphasize that it isn't like other NFT games. “A lot of those games [based on NFTs so far] are not optimized around the game design and the gameplay and the players as much,” co-creator Naomi Augustine-Yee told GamesBeat. “We wanted to make it more like a traditional collectible card game.”
"Magic: The Gathering" owner Hasbro sees “multiple opportunities on the NFT side.”
Hasbro, the company that bought Magic publisher Wizards of the Coast in 1999, suggested in April that gamers might soon get an actual NFT game based on Magic: The Gathering.
“NFTs are a real opportunity for us,” Hasbro CEO Brian Goldner said on an earnings call, according to Polygon. “As you know, we have so many brands that really operate on multiple demographic levels; whether it’s Transformers, whether it’s Magic and the [Dungeons & Dragons] brand, and brands like G.I. Joe.”
He also said, “We have a team that is leading our effort out of the West Coast. We have our arms around this and see multiple opportunities on the NFT side, and you’ll hear more about that as we move forward. But we are actively developing our opportunities here, and we do see it as substantial.”