One of the top-selling NFTs, Bored Ape Yacht Club, will not remain as an NFT collection anymore. Yuga Labs, the developers behind the Bored Apes, plans to transform the NFTs into a blockchain game in partnership with gaming software company Animoca Brands.
Details regarding the game are yet to be disclosed, but the companies plan to develop a play-to-earn game using the NFTs intellectual property (IP). As per the press release, the game will be released by the second quarter of 2022.
We are excited to announce that we will work with @BoredApeYC to create a #P2E blockchain game utilizing Bored Ape #NFTs!https://t.co/vmALCQdcrO#BoredApe #BlockchainGaming https://t.co/0GRHEoKGQO
— Animoca Brands (@animocabrands) December 13, 2021
Yat Siu, the co-founder of Animoca Brands, commented:
“There are very few icons that are able to represent the surging world of NFTs as powerfully as Bored Ape Yacht Club, which is why we, as a group and in aggregate, hold a significant number of them. We are incredibly excited and proud to collaborate on a game for this cultural milestone.”
The 10,000 BAYC NFT collection was initially sold for 0.08 Ether (ETH) per NFT. However, since then its popularity skyrocketed after buyers and supporters started using NFTs as profile pictures for their social media accounts.
In October, Bored Ape #8817 was sold at Sotheby’s auction house for $3.4 million. The collection has seen 23,016 primary and secondary sales to date, with the total collection estimated at a $3 billion valuation.
Animoca Brands has a solid track record of developing and investing in popular blockchain games. The company has developed the popular metaverse platform The Sandbox and has invested in popular NFT games and projects, including Axie Infinity, Decentraland, and Dapper Labs.