MixMob, a Solana-based gaming model, introduced Thursday that it’ll add the Stormtrooper character from “Star Wars: A New Hope” as an NFT collectible and playable character for its Racer 1 recreation that mashes up racing and card-based technique. However there’s some fascinating nuance to this license deal.
Whereas the licensed character is certainly the long-lasting Stormtropper from the unique 1977 smash sci-fi movie, this deal wasn’t brokered with Disney or Lucasfilm, or anybody representing them. As an alternative, the deal is with Shepperton Design Studios and unique “Star Wars” prop maker Andrew Ainsworth.
Ainsworth designed the acquainted white-armored soldier from the unique movie. Many years later, when he began producing and promoting reproduction helmets primarily based on his personal design, Lucasfilm unleashed its attorneys and triggered a years-long authorized battle. Finally, when it was all stated and achieved, Ainsworth secured restricted rights to commercialize the design.
And that’s what you’ll see in MixMob: the “Unique Stormtrooper” character. This isn’t a Disney deal or a wide-ranging “Star Wars” license play—however it’s certainly the official Stormtrooper design from the prop maker who initially introduced it to life.
A MixMob consultant confirmed to Decrypt’s GG that the sport studio can’t use Star Wars branding and that the deal, on this case, is proscribed to the armor design from “A New Hope.”
Even so, it’s a memorable piece of a significant popular culture franchise coming into an NFT recreation that goals to ship a style of “remix tradition,” and the studio says that it plans to carry different licensed characters and content material into MixMob as a cellular model of the sport is about to debut in Q2 2024. MixMob goals to announce three further license integrations this yr.
Sale particulars for the Stormtrooper NFTs haven’t but been revealed. Based on the group, house owners of MixMob’s Gen0 Masks and Gen0 MixBots NFTs will probably be given “precedence entry” to the mint.
MixMob’s Solana-based governance token, MXM, is up practically 15% on the day to a worth of above $0.10 per knowledge from CoinGecko. The token, which debuted on February 1 with an airdrop to reward early gamers and NFT house owners, set an all-time excessive worth of $0.1136 final week.
Edited by Ryan Ozawa.