GM

Someone said they listen to this whenever they read our newsletter and I'm not sure what to make of that.

In today’s edition:

• How is no one talking about this game?

• Updated Mint and Watch Lists

• Four new drops

Links for the Mint/Watch list drops are HERE.

Did you know?

We have a premium pass that gives you access to a directory of every drop we cover, complete with detailed information on how to get on every whitelist (including those underrated ones that aren’t already full).

And for those curatooors out there, you can get free NFTs just by finding drops that end up on the Mint or Watch list.

Lastly, hang with me and the MoS team in a private discord with weekly voice chats. The vibes are great.

Would you like to be featured in Mint or Skip like the above ☝️ ?

How is no one talking about this game?

A few weeks ago, Mythical Games CEO John Linden made a wild prediction.

He said that in 2023 we would get:

Not one…

Not two…

But three NFT games breaking 10 million players.

The first is NFL Rivals, their own game which hit 1 million players after 6 weeks (and the NFL season hasn’t even started yet).

The second is Summoner War Chronicles, the MMO from Korean publisher Com2uS that launched late last year.

And the third, Nitro Nation World Tour, launched its beta on mobile yesterday.

It’s another Mythical Games title, and John believes they’ll actually get 25 million players in the first year alone, which would make it the biggest NFT game…*checks notes*...ever?

Yet, their announcement tweet only got 9 likes – not a soul is talking about it.

Well, that is except for Your Most Perceptive and Insightful Author.

Wait, Mythical Games? Who?

Mythical has been releasing NFT games since 2021 when they launched Blankos Block Party (another game that hit 1M+ players).

They’ve raised an incredible $260 million so far, including a fresh raise of $37 million just last month.

Their blockchain, Mythos Chain, has more NFT volume this month than any chain other than Ethereum, Polygon and Solana (it has 20x more than Ronin, Axie Infinity’s chain).

They’re getting shout-outs from Android in their press releases about NFTs.

They’re signing deals with the NFL, Porsche, Burberry and other brands.

In other words, Dear Readers, they’re the real deal.

Let’s talk about Nitro Nation World Tour

This is a straightforward racing game. You build cars, you race them, you join teams that race against other teams, and you rise in the leaderboards.

World Tour is actually a sequel to the OG Nitro Nation title by CM Games, which previously had 85 million installs and ranks as the third largest mobile racing game of all time.

This existing audience is partly why Mythical thinks they can ramp up to 25 million players fairly quickly.

The other reason is that they think players will love play-to-own when it all finally clicks.

Ownership plays a big role in World Tour. The cars you buy and build are actually stored as NFTs on the Mythos chain in the background.

You can play World Tour like a normal mobile game without interacting with NFTs at all. But later, if you want to opt in, it’s easy to set up your wallet and access or trade the NFTs you’ve earned.

I personally think it’s a brilliant strategy and first covered this with NFL Rivals here.

If you do interact with the NFTs, you’ll be able to accept offers on your cars and rent or loan cars for in-game currency.

But there’s an even cooler mechanic called…

Racing for keeps

This is where you take your car, lock it in a smart contract, race against someone else who does the same, and then the winner gets to keep both cars.

They’re still in the process of getting all the necessary legal approvals, but they sound confident that this will exist at some point.

John Linden laid out a potential scenario for how this could work:

1. Faze Clan partners with Porsche for a limited edition car (e.g. 10k supply).

2. Owning a car gets you access to an eSports tournament in the game

3. Faze Clan streamers also get a 1-of-1 variant of that car

4. If you win the tournament you get to play a streamer

5. If you beat the streamer, you get their 1-of-1 NFT

There’s a lot to unpack here

The high-stakes competitions. In this case, it’s “racing” for keeps, but if they get approval then there’s no reason it can’t be ported to their NFL game too. And in general the idea of “staking” an NFT in a competitive match could go viral.

The licensing aspect with creators. John says that in this example Faze Clan is receiving a % of secondary royalties, which is a big opportunity that I think most large streamers would flock to.

The token-gated tournaments. A creative way to bring real utility to limited editions beyond cosmetics without making it pay-to-win.

And finally, you have the 1-of-1s. Suddenly it isn’t difficult to imagine some items getting insanely valuable in a short period of time.

Bottom line

I played World Tour last night for about an hour. And just like with NFL Rivals, this game has AAA-level quality and polish.

The mechanics also seem simple enough and benefit from a formula that was fine-tuned over years from the wildly popular original game.

Now it’s still in beta, and I didn’t play long enough to have a super strong opinion on all the features.

But it’s worth downloading just to see how one of the leading Web3 gaming publishers is pioneering the genre.

P.S. While Mythical seems bullish on World Tour’s future growth, they were never able to mint out the pre-sale for the game’s genesis NFTs earlier this year.

NOTE: These drops are lightly curated. Our only requirement is that they have recognizable founders. As usual, DYOR. To learn more go here.

A RED Song by RedruM

Pseudonymous AI artist RedruM is releasing 3 new pieces featuring his signature crimson tones on Nifty Gateway today.

The A RED Song collection features two limited editions for $33 and $66 via a raffle, plus an auction for the August Soliloquy 1/1.

Both the raffles and the auction close at 3 PM ET tomorrow, so you better be quick if you’re looking to get these.

heart + craft by Snowfro & Jordan Lyall

Might dub this one The Anti-Botter Drop.

One of the most prominent figures in blockchain-based generative art, Snowfro, is teaming up with the founder of Prohibition.art, Jordan Lyall, to drop heart + craft on the platform next Thursday.

They’re calling it an Inclusive Edition, meant to present NFTs as valuable assets beyond scarcity, utility, and perhaps even wagmi itself (ok this last part I just added on).

The art features slowly spinning 3D hearts composed of multicolored blocks. They’re designed to manifest both digitally and physically, with owners receiving instructions on how to bring them to life.

Nostalgia Exhibition by SkaldaAI

SkaldaAI is an artist-led platform for curated AI art recently founded by artists 0009 and taj, due to have its inaugural exhibition, Nostalgia, between August 28th and September 1st.

Five emerging artist have gathered for this show, tasked with crafting new works based on their personal photographs: Negar Sepehr / lilyillo / DeltaSauce / g0naji / pale kirill.

This could be quite compelling depending on the approach, so I’m excited to see how the 20 pieces turn out.

Noble Gallery Summer Finale

Noble Gallery, an art platform founded in May 2022 by collectors Artifaction and Matt Szczur, gears up for its Summer Finale on May 29th.

It’ll feature creations from 5 renowned artists some readers should already be familiar with: Des Lucréce / Efdot / OSF / Terrell Jones / XSULLO.

Full drop mechanics have not been disclosed yet, but I assume most of the mint spots will be allocated for LET’S PLAY holders via a raffle, and we already know that those raffle winners will have a free mint.

The Mint List

1. Taproot Wizards. OG Bitcoin meme inscribed as ordinals

2. Genesis SFT Pass. Digital anime collectibles from a notable team

3. LUCI: Chapter 5. Follow-up from artist with esteemed collector base

4. 10KTF PFP. Drop from a team that includes Yuga and Beeple

5. Shadow Hats. Ordinals drop from the creators of Forgotten Runes

6. Project Animus. RTFKT's biggest launch since Clone-X

7. Symbiogenesis. Square Enix's upcoming gaming NFT

8. Quasi Dragons. Innovative drop from an Art Blocks veteran

9. Memeland [TBC]. High-value treasure MVPs minting on BTC

10. Distance by Mapan. Influential artist x Cactoid Labs x LACMA