EA Sports and Nike Virtual Studios have announced a new partnership aimed at adding Nike’s .SWOOSH virtual creations, aka NFTs, to future EA Sports games.
EA announced the news. blog, “Our new partnership with Nike and EA SPORTS aims to build new immersive experiences within the EA SPORTS ecosystem and enable a whole new level of customization.” Details on how it will appear are unknown, but a short video posted by .SWOOSH on Twitter gives a little visualization of what fans can expect.
What’s in the game? Only time will tell…@EASPORTS × .Swoosh🎮⚽️🏈🏆 pic.twitter.com/AXgidKX7rd
— .SWOOSH (@dotSWOOSH) June 1, 2023
.SWOOSH secured Nike’s virtual creations using the Polygon blockchain. The video example above shows a black football his helmet with a Nike logo and a purple visor. The helmet appears on a kind of digital card that indicates when it was purchased and the unique ID that the “virtual piece” has.
This means that this item is unique and tied to a specific person, and could theoretically be used in future Madden games. The video also features a branded soccer ball alongside three different soccer balls, which could very well be merged with EA Sports FC, the soccer game formerly known as FIFA. It seems to indicate high
NFTs, blockchains and Web3 have all been controversial within and outside the gaming industry, with many companies withdrawing support for them after facing criticism. Some studios signed anti-NFT pledges last year, encouraging developers to implement NFTs only if they don’t cause significant environmental damage. Yes, because it requires a huge amount of computing power and energy to do so. .
EA has talked about NFTs before, with EA CEO Andrew Wilson saying he believes NFTs will be “a critical part of the future of gaming.” However, the company said a year later that it was “not aggressive” in the NFT direction.
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Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @Adam Bankhurst and further Twitching.
