How would a web3 game plan to onboard 10,000,000+ traditional web2 gamers to a completely different realm of NFT gaming technology that has been frowned upon since it’s inception?
Well most importantly, don’t include the word “NFT” in the name. Hehe.
After a year and half since project launch, NFT Worlds will officially be rebranding the name of the project.
In a tweet from ArkDev on March 14, he states that NFT Worlds has some big updates coming soon, including the long-awaited name change that has been a hot conversation topic amongst the community for months.
But that’s not all. Obviously this tweet has made the rounds and the official NFT Worlds Discord is buzzing.
Ark added another major detail in that the new name will also NOT include “Worlds” in the title.
The NFT Worlds team created a poll back in December 2022 for community members to give name suggestions to spark ideas. You can view the poll here.
“Open World” seemed to be the most popular choice and generally liked among the team. But now it’s confirmed that 99% of those names will not be making it to the limelight – as the new name will not have “Worlds” or any iteration of it.
To Re or Not to Re-brand?
It’s certainly a controversial question, with many pros and cons for each. It is a plain fact that NFTs’ and web3 gaming have been shunned by web2 gamers overall, with many big streamers airing their disdain for them to their communities. You can’t really blame them either, even if they are misinformed in general.
The web3 gaming space hasn’t seen much success thus far, at least a mainstream commercial success. The space in general is riddled with bad actors, scam projects, and lackluster products – especially in the gaming/metaverse category.
One of the main issues NFT Worlds has had was the name of the project itself. To web3 investors, gamers, project holders – it’s a perfectly fine name. There’s nothing too flashy about it, it’s straight to the point, has a ton of history and name recognition, and it’s catchy.
The major problem lies when it comes to onboarding gamers outside of the web3 space, which is a HUGE population, especially when you consider Minecraft alone has 170,000,000+ (that’s million) active users per month.
Aside from the fact that NFT Worlds was originally building on top of Minecraft and then eventually got rugged by them – web2 gamers are sickened by NFTs overall, and NFT Worlds has the poisonous word directly in it’s name. It’s akin to saying Voldemort. Not optimal.
Rebranding Pros
- No bad taste from "NFT" being in the title, less friction
- Potentially more unique/catchy name
- Makes sense with the project's overhaul
- Easier to onboard web2 gamers
- Clean slate, easier to market
- Strong initial shockwave, big hype event
Rebranding Cons
- Lose established name recognition and history
- Impact can be negligible, gamers will migrate to web3 anyways
- General short to medium-term confusion (web3 space generally)
- All Your Loot has to do a lot of keyword revising 🤣
There are definitely more pros than cons of rebranding in our opinion.
For a project that is looking to onboard 10,000,000+ players, much of those being traditional web2 gamers, reducing friction or any bad taste from NFTs and crypto is a critical step in accomplishing that.
NFT Worlds and are already major forces in tackling the biggest problem in the web3 gaming space as a whole, and that is removing friction with innovative technology along with a creating a familiar gaming experience based on an already massively successful formula. The goal is to create a web3 game and have the player not even know they are playing one.
If frictionless tech is an issue they are laser-focused on solving, then having the word “NFT” in the flagship product would surely be non-sensical.
I am big hype and anxious to hear what the new name is, and Ark seems pretty stoked about it as well. We are here because we trust in the team and the projects they are building, and I’m sure they’ll knock this out of the park.
Thanks for reading, if you liked this post, make sure to share it on Twitter and follow @allyourlootnews for all things NFT Worlds (soon to be ———)!
For now, I leave you with this monke, say gm:
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