Konami Announces Castlevania 35th Anniversary NFTs, Auction Starts Next Week

The Castlevania series is celebrating its 35th anniversary this year, and to mark the occasion, Konami is rolling out new Castlevania-themed NFTs. The "Konami Memorial NFT" program, as it's called, begins with an auction starting on January 12.

There are 14 items up for sale, including pixel art showing off iconic scenes from the games. Some of the NFTs include "newly drawn" art from the Castlevania series, the NFT page says.

The auction itself is taking place on OpenSea, which bills itself as the largest NFT marketplace on the internet. The auction ends at 9 PM ET on January 14, at which point the highest bidders will take home, so to speak, their digital prizes.

In the FAQ, Konami says no Castlevania NFT with the same exact data will be resold, but "similar" ones focused on the same game "may be resold in the future."

Konami getting into the NFT market is not a surprise, as Konami president Kimihiko Higashio said in a statement that technologies like NFTs will help the video game market become "revitalized by inventive new ways to enjoy games."

Konami isn't alone in the testing the waters of NFTs, either. Ubisoft recently announced its own line of NFTs, Ubisoft Quartz, while executives from Take-Two and Electronic Arts are big believers in NFTs as well.

"If you believe in collectible physical goods, I don't know why you wouldn't believe in collectible digital goods," Take-Two's Strauss Zelnick said. "And blockchain authorization, which is what an NFT really is, is one way--not the only way--to authenticate the fact something is singular is rare."

NFTs get a bad rap, Zelnick said, because some have sold for gargantuan markups--but this is not representative of what NFTs are really all about, as Zelnick sees it. "NFTs, because they're related to the blockchain as currently contemplated and because some have gone for a lot of money, are seen by some as just another opportunity to invest in a speculation that some think will only go up. And speculations don't just go up; they come down too," he said.

EA CEO Andrew Wilson recently discussed NFTs during the company's earnings call, saying NFTs could be another way to "add value" to EA's games.

"I think the play-to-earn or the NFT conversation is still really, really early, and there's a lot of conversation. And there's at some level, a lot of hype about it," Wilson said. "I do think it will be an important part of our--of the future of our industry on a go-forward basis. But it's still early to kind of figure out how that's going to work."

NFTs also have their fair share of critics who cite issues like their impact on the climate, as well as concerns about sustainability and volatility. For more, check out GameSpot's guide to everything you need to know about NFTs.