Just-In: Tencent-backed game to enter the P2E NFT arena

The Tencent-backed, French mobile video game start up, Voodoo has announced to join the the Play to Earn (P2E) Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT) gaming industry. According to company officials, Voodoo has decided to invest over $200 million towards blockchain technology development by next year, to further its P2E NFT project.

“Blockchain will especially disrupt gaming, as players are already used to buying digital assets…This technology will give players true ownership of their digital assets, creating deeper interactions between players – collecting, trading, selling in-game digital currencies and game assets – which will increase fun and engagement.” Reuters quoted the Voodoo chief executive, Alex Yazdi.

However, the Chief executive highlighted that P2E NFT games based on blockchain technology are “not going to kill other types of games, but it is going to be huge”. Furthermore, Yazdi also noted that the technological development that comes with blockchain will also facilitate an “automated way to handle flows, storing and protection of data”, which in turn will “improve a lot of industries.”

P2E NFT gaming, or the next up and coming trend?

Voodoo is not the first or last French gaming company to identify the underlying potential of P2E NFT video games. Earlier this year, another French startup, Sorare raised the massive amount of $680 million for its NFT fantasy football trading card game of the same name. Sorare became popular for providing a platform to participate in fantasy football tournaments with NFTs, where players can buy, sell, trade, and manage a virtual team with their digital player cards.

However, no evolutionary concept goes unnoticed by global regulators, which is also what happened with Sorare. At the beginning of Q4, the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) issued a notice against Sorare, claiming that the platform was operating without a UK gambling license, hence, categorising Sorare’s P2E NFT project under gambling. Nevertheless, the commission is yet to decide the final outcome.

UKGC noted that they are, “currently carrying out enquiries into the company to establish whether Sorare.com requires an operating license or whether the services it provides do not constitute gambling.”