Gamers Rally Behind ‘More Than Gamers’ NFT Project And Its Metaverse Roadmap – CoinDesk

With non-fungible token (NFT) trading volumes back on the rise, project More Than Gamers (MTG) is garnering buzz for its ambitious roadmap.

Its 10,000-item profile pic (PFP) collection sold out in under a minute on Dec. 23, and is now holding onto a 0.49 ETH floor price as of press time. The project is the eighth-most popular collection on OpenSea by trade volume in the past week.

Owners of the NFTs will be granted access to the project’s “MTG Battle Station” game, where they can stake their NFTs for rewards in the form of Arcadia and Lifeline tokens.

“We want to show how gaming can be a lifestyle brand,” MTG co-founder Aaron Kirshenberg told CoinDesk in an interview. “Gamers can be musicians, athletes, all sorts of really passionate people. Our goal is to build the largest gaming community in the NFT space.”

It hasn’t yet been an easy sell.

Gamers revolted over announced plans to introduce NFTs to a popular Ubisoft title. The same drama unfolded when Stalker 2 announced – then quickly axed – its NFT intentions.

But Kirshenberg hopes his background can change the calculus. He is also the founder of Team New Age, a fast-growing North American esports group.

MTG’s first major partner in its metaverse vision is sportswear brand Champion, which will be offering exclusive access to virtual merchandise and wearables on the MTG platform.

This type of promotion – popular clothing brands adding value to NFT projects with utility that is virtual as opposed to physical – has seen success in recent months, headlined by the “adidas Originals Into the Metaverse” collection, which involved a partnership with NFT heavyweight Bored Ape Yacht Club.

MTG has also nabbed a seed round from metaverse investment group QGlobe, led by industry veteran and co-founder Sarah Austin. Austin told CoinDesk the firm has big ambitions for MTG, including an eventual raise to build its own metaverse ecosystem on par with popular platforms like Decentraland and The Sandbox.

“We haven’t seen one major metaverse emerge as the platform yet,” Austin told CoinDesk in an interview. “It’s community first, and when you have the community of gamers and early users that MTG has, it makes for a very promising future.”