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The wildly successful BBC sci-fi drama ‘Doctor Who’ is the subject of a new digital trading card game. ‘Dr. Who: Worlds Apart’ uses Ethereum-based non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
The game itself isn’t live yet, but card packs are already available as part of a pre-sale. Players will eventually be able to trade scarce cards on a secondary marketplace.
Dr. Who Trading Card Pre-Sale Now Live
The Dr. Who: Worlds Apart digital trading card game pre-sale is now live. Players can buy packs of the NFTs via the game’s official website.
Players will use the digital trading cards to play the Doctor Who: Worlds Apart game itself. According to Reality Gaming Group, the company behind the enterprise, the game will go live during Q2 2021.
Along with their use within the game itself, players will be able to trade cards via a secondary marketplace. Trading will reportedly commence during Q1 of 2021.
Limited numbers of different cards will be made available via the Ethereum blockchain. Players will, therefore, actually own each card themselves. In other words, thanks to blockchain tech, there won’t be duplicates of individual cards.
If the game proves popular, the rarest cards may be worth a lot of money on the secondary market.
NFTs All the Rage
NFTs are an emerging trend in the cryptocurrency industry. They’re essentially blockchain-based tokens that represent digital items rather than units of currency.
Early applications of NFTs include digital artwork and in-game items. BeInCrypto has previously reported on the growing interest in digital art auction platforms like SuperRare.
Previously, in-game items, like the Doctor Who trading cards, would remain the company’s property that created them. By contrast, NFTs, which are often based on the ERC-721 standard, provide digital scarcity for players.
This means they can trade sought-after items for real money and even use their items in other games.
Ethereum Ready for Another Crypto Kitties Fiasco?
The Doctor Who: Worlds Apart game isn’t the first trading card-style game to come to the Ethereum network. In 2017, Crypto Kitties, a game in which players collected and bred digital cats, was so popular that it sent transaction fees soaring and ground the network to all but a halt.
The BBC Doctor Who franchise has held enormous mainstream appeal since the 1960s. While the new trading card game may well attract more users to experiment with cryptocurrencies, such an influx could have a similar impact on Ethereum gas prices.
Continuing interest in DeFi has already put pressure on Ethereum transaction fees this year. Although fees are currently relatively low, if the Doctor Who: Worlds Apart game is successful, it too could drive transaction fees skywards, limiting the network’s utility once again.