SINGAPORE–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Ready Games, a leading platform powering the social economy for virtual goods in games, today announced a new partnership with Epik, the leading global licensing agency immersing major brands into AAA games. Epik has been selected to be the exclusive NFT technology provider for the Ready Games Network (RGN), a hyper-casual social gaming platform with more than one million users.
The companies have already collaborated to integrate Epik Prime’s blockchain technology and NFT framework to power digital collectibles and transactions on RGN’s upcoming gaming metaverse title, ICON: Avatar Fashion Metaverse, which launches this week on the Apple App Store and Google Play.
ICON will be the very first metaverse utilizing Epik Prime’s technology to enable gamers to produce NFTs, from the virtual game assets they create in game.
“We are creating a mobile-first experience that enables gamers everywhere to participate in a virtual goods economy, while fully democratizing the experience and putting control and ownership in the hands of our users,” said Christina Macedo, COO of Ready Games. “Our vision is to have virtual goods transferable and usable across our entire network of games. Thanks to Epik, we are one step closer to true interoperability.”
In addition to in-game NFT creation, Epik Prime’s NFT infrastructure enables the sale of the limited edition NFTs and digital collectibles across games. The partnership also enables brands, artists and other IP owners to turn their unique intellectual property into fashion canvases. For example, this will be one of the first collaborations featuring mainstream contemporary artist, Vladimir Nazarov.
RGN avatar technology powers a distributed marketplace where the creators and buyers of digital goods can meet and transact directly in the games, while providing tools that empower creators to easily make, distribute, and sell their digital goods across games. For developers and creators, this network provides the backend and frontend social infrastructure that enables a virtual goods economy at scale. For users, this enables persistent player identities with ownership rights over the digital goods a user has created or acquired across games. What makes the RGN and Epik Prime technology integration very unique is that this is not just for a single game title but instead will enable NFTs for an entire ecosystem and network of games.
For brands and IP owners, Epik’s blockchain-powered capabilities present a low-risk opportunity to explore the NFT space and get access to distribute NFTs across the world’s largest network of game companies and NFT marketplaces. Epik’s technology and brand partnerships allow for major gaming companies to engage with their audience in an entirely new way: by monetizing limited-edition collectibles to share with loyal fans and players within the gaming community.
With Epik, digital platforms keep total creative freedom over their digital ecosystem with no restrictive or long-term licensing contracts and can pick and choose licensed digital merchandise that they determine would be the right fit for their world. Epik’s technology and brand partnerships allow for major gaming companies to engage with their audience in an entirely new way: by monetizing limited-edition collectibles to share with loyal fans and players within the gaming community.
Epik’s recent collaborations include Gameloft’s Asphalt 9, one of the world’s largest mobile games downloaded over 1 billion times. Through this partnership, Epik helped Gameloft launch the AAA gaming company’s first foray into NFTs, with exclusive in-game digital collectibles and NFTs from the popular racing game. This collaboration was history making and an exciting event for the entire mainstream gaming and collectibles industry, and a major leap forward for the mass adoption of blockchain technologies.
About Ready Games
Founded in 2016 by WIRED magazine veteran David S. Bennahum, and legal consultant turned advocate for women in tech Christina Macedo, Ready is the innovative virtual studio behind Ready Maker, no-code game creator, powering over 3000+ games and supporting over 2 million creators and the Ready Games Network. Ready itself is backed by BITKRAFT Ventures, COMCAST Ventures, Strauss ZELNICK CEO of Take2. To learn more about The Ready Games, please visit https://www.thereadygames.com.
About Epik
With more than 300 video game clients, Epik is the leading global licensing agency putting brands into video games to produce premium digital items and experiences for over one billion gamers worldwide with the largest digital ecosystem with hundreds of the world’s most popular entertainment brands. Epik is widely considered to be the blockchain industry leader producing collaborations for premium licensed digital collectables, NFTs and exclusive experiences powered by an interoperable proprietary cross-chain technology. Epik was the first and only NFT company to do any deals with AAA gaming companies for NFTs. Clients include ViacomCBS, Warner Music, Garena, Tencent and Universal.
About Nazarov
Vladimir Nazarov is a contemporary visual artist living in New York City. Nazarov was one of the very first artists to settle down in the once industrial-wasteland-like area along the East River known as DUMBO, where he maintains a studio to this day. For over 40 years, Nazarov has used a diverse practice of painting, sculpting, drawing, and installation to examine the relationships between humanity, technology, nature, and art. Nazarov is best known for his large-scale works on canvas and innovative use of color, movement, light, and layering that seemingly express the essence of life itself. Ultimately, Nazarov’s works are an emotionally charged, open-ended treatise on the human condition, dissecting the eternal mysteries of what it means to be human.
Nazarov’s works have been exhibited and can be found in collections in the US and abroad.