Genies Asia Unveils a Colorful PAC-MAN Wearable NFT for the Game’s 41st Birthday
Bringing the iconic character into the metaverse.
Genies, an avatar creation company, has partnered with Bandai Namco Entertainment to debut a wearable PAC-MAN NFT celebrating the iconic game’s 41st birthday.
Genies enlisted the help of several digital artists for the drop, including Baugasm, Cory Van Lew, Gabriel GG, NFN Kalyan, Defaced and Render Fruit. The collection will be available on NFT marketplace OpenSea beginning Thursday, May 20th at 7 p.m. EDT and is made up of eight Genies Moment NFTs. Six editions of the colorful Genies x PAC-MAN helmet will be up for grabs, each redesigned in a unique style by the afformentioned digital artists. One of the seven Genies x PAC-MAN helmets will feature a background inspired by the video game, which has been dubbed the “classic edition.”
A 1-of-1 avatar art piece will also be up for auction, featuring an avatar wearing a PAC-MAN helmet while being chased through the video game by a nefarious PAC-MAN ghost.
“It’s amazing to be able to bring PAC-MAN into the digital world in this capacity where fans and collectors can engage with the game in a completely new way,” said Bandai Namco Entertainment CEO Yasuo Miyakawa.
Genies, which launched in 2017, secured $65 million USD in its latest funding round earlier this month. The Los Angeles-based company has also received financial backing from recently-listed crypto trading platform Coinbase and NBA Top Shot’s Dapper Labs.
The PAC-MAN release is the last wearable NFT drop before Genies prepares to launch its homegrown Avatar Wearable NFT Marketplace later this year. The new platform is a collaboration with Dapper Labs’ Flow blockchain and will house all future Bandai Namco drops exclusively.
Allison Sturges, Head of Genies’ Asia Operations, explained the demand for avatar wearables. ”It’s really this portable digital identity that travels with you across the internet,” she told HYPEBEAST, noting that Genies was developing more integrations so avatars could be used across a range of metaverses.
“We see our wearables as kind of that next step in how people can evolve their avatars and collect moments that are special to them,” she added. “Eventually, we want to allow anyone to create their own avatar wearable NFTs as well.”
