Tomonobu Itagaki, Dead or Alive & Ninja gaiden Producer, Shills for NFTs
You may know Tomonobu Itagaki as a producer of the Dead or Aliveseries or the 2004 Ninja Gaidenreboot. last year, announced the creation of Itagaki Games. We have not heard anything about Itagaki’s current projects in the 18 months that have passed since that announcement. Apex Game Studios was also established by Itagaki. It is currently working on Warrior, an MMO that focuses on NFTs, crypto bullshit, and other related topics.
Itagaki posted information about the game to his Twitter account. In an announcement posted to CoinTelegraph he explains the monetization scheme using a bunch buzzwords that will not be understood by the average Ninja Gaiden or Dead or Alive fan who might have been curious to see what Itagaki was doing. The announcement about the studio is filled with so many crypto buzzwords, it fails to mention Warrior. The game’s website shows that the game offers NFTs for summonable “servants”, islands, resources and cosmetics. Additionally, the game allows players to trade their very special and unique in-game assets.
Itagaki and his crew are free to do what they like with Warriors. It just feels sloppy when a producer of beloved franchises is tied up in these scams. It’s sad because I was a huge fan of Dead or Alivegrowing-up (before I discovered better fighting games), Even veteran Nintendo President Reggie Fils Aime doubled his efforts to purchase fake content in videogames, after he supported NFTs in his book Distructing the Game.
While NFTs and crypto bullshit continue to infiltrate the games industry over the years, the perceived value of owning original digital products (winking Emoji) has fallen in recent months. Many projects that were in development before the crisis hit are still being launched. This includes GameStop which has just laid off many employees and is entering NFT market because the whole thing is falling apart. It has been able to penetrate some notable franchises such as Ni No Kuni and Ubisoft. However, it is not as big as Microsoft, Sony, or Nintendo. Square-Enix confirmed that NFTs won’t be coming to Final Fantasy XIV but they are looking at other options.
