Games developer Zynga slated to release first NFT game in 2022
Zynga, the games developer based in San Francisco, popular for the FarmVille and CSR Racing series, has made an announcement of its plans of releasing its first blockchain and NFT-based games by this year.
The billion-dollar gaming studio first hit the headlines in the cryptocurrencies industry last year after following its appointment of 30-year gaming industry veteran Matt Wolf as its Vice President of Blockchain Gaming for leading the firm’s charge into the emerging industry.
Zynga has also made the announcement of plans of increasing its blockchain gaming team from currently 15 employees to up to 100 by the end of 2022. The firm might also soon fall under the umbrella of video-game colossus Take-Two Interactive, which is the publisher of Grand Theft Auto that had publicly announced a $12.7 billion dollar acquisition scheduled for a close in the first quarter of 2023.
Speaking on its NFT based gaming plans with Axios, Matt Wolf stated that upcoming blockchain-based games are set to be brand new titles, it won’t “make sense” to start adding NFTs into existing games like FarmVille straight away.
He further detailed that players can expect the forthcoming games to be something like Mafia Wars. Mafia Wars was a social media game where players would roleplay as gangsters who worked in building up their crime families. It has been now discontinued. Wolf also clarified that the company’s game developers would always have the option of opting in or out of any NFT plans. From the latest public statements, it appears that Zynga has taken a more aggressive step into the blockchain-based gaming sector.
Some players with NFTs added to their gaming experience have expressed that companies are only looking for new ways of squeezing money out of their customers. However, despite these incoming criticisms, Wolf views NFTs and blockchain technology as the legitimate next step in Zynga’s evolution with tokenized systems to enhance value, ownership and wealth creation for video gamers.
Speaking with the New York Times, Wolf shared that he’s pretty aware of the difficulties that NFT-based games have come up against, but it is “all about community,” he remarked. He added that they believe in giving people the opportunity to Play-to-Earn.
