European esports organisation G2 Esports has launched its own PFP NFT project and gamified social club known as ‘Samurai Army’.
An NFT, or non-fungible token, is a unique digital asset (usually an image or a piece of digital art), with the buyer receiving a digital receipt saying they own it. NFTs can be bought and owned and re-sold, usually for cryptocurrency. A PFP is short for a profile picture.
An example of a popular existing NFT PFP project is CryptoPunks, which has seen some of its pixelated character face NFTs sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars each.
Samurai Army will be a series of randomly generated unique samurai NFTs. Each one will be made up of five randomly generated variables: the weapon, helmet, chest, arm piece and background.
Members will be able to develop the backstory of their samurai, defeat bosses and win rewards.
Each of the NFTs also act a ticket to G2’s new club, giving buyers access to collaborative content, experiences and events. There will be a series of perks and rewards leveraging the G2 brand, including live chats with official G2 players, games with G2 creators, expenses paid trips to major esports events and more.
Holders will also get early access to all future G2 NFTs celebrating the org’s major esports achievements, expansions of the G2 brand into new stories and mediums, player moments and more.
Everyone who buys a G2 NFT will also be able to name it. The personalised mark will be left permanently no matter who the NFT is later sold to.
G2 has also launched a community reward system, where it will reward the most passionate and active community members who are writing stories, creating art, helping NFT newbies and building the community. The rewards include being whitelisted to guarantee yourself the chance to “mint” your samurai and exclusive Discord titles.
G2 says its NFTs will ‘offer immediate and long-term value for holders, rather than relying on speculative value as other NFTs do’.
“NFTs have the potential to be huge. I can think of no better way to give back to our community than creating our own NFT community for gamers, NFT holders, crypto enthusiasts, creatives and artists.”
Ocelote, G2 Esports
The NFT gaming community and social club has been developed in partnership with Metaplex, an NFT platform for creators and brands to build their own NFT storefronts on the Solana blockchain.
G2’s ambition is to show gamers how NFTs can be used to add value as G2 expands into games, music, comics, manga and other creative mediums. Earlier this month, G2 launched a music track and its own record label.
Carlos ‘ocelote’ Rodriguez, CEO of G2 Esports, commented: “We have been working hard for the last six months to make sure that we have a project that is worth G2 army’s attention but also fans of web3 space. We are creating a gamified social club for sweaty gamers, esports, and NFT fans alike.
“NFTs have the potential to be huge. I can think of no better way to give back to our community than creating our own NFT community for gamers, NFT holders, crypto enthusiasts, creatives and artists. Our fans have been a driving force of G2 so to build this community, offer instant value and rewards, feels really special. Art has driven the NFT world so far, but G2 will lead gaming NFTs.
“We built this project for those that believe in G2 and our commitment to engage with our fans physically and digitally for decades to come, rather than those looking to make a quick buck.”
Ben Sparango, head of business development at Solana Labs, added: “I’m thrilled to have G2 building in the Solana ecosystem. G2’s mission with the Samurai Army, creating more meaningful experiences through use of digital assets, is the embodiment of our ecosystem ethos and a huge step forward for decentralized communities.
“G2 has chosen Solana as the viable solution for their long term company and community ambitions in this space, and I can’t wait for everyone to experience what they’ve built.”
The Solana blockchain has average transaction fees of $0.00025. Solana also claims to be energy efficient, and that “minting G2’s NFTs will use less energy and be more environmentally friendly than if done via other blockchains. A single transaction on Solana takes less energy than two Google searches, and 24 times less energy than charging your phone.”
While NFTs have created some excitement with the gaming community, they have also courted controversy. Earlier this week, British video game YouTubers James Stephanie Sterling, Caddicarus and others criticised NFTs after tokens were made without their permission.
Some UK esports orgs are involved in NFTs too. LDN UTD launched an NFT collection supported by the Rio Ferdinand Foundation and Semper Fortis moved into Hearthstone and NFT game Axie Infinity.
Samuary Army can be found on the Samurai Army Discord and Samurai Army Twitter.
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
