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Investors and players of the NFT-powered racing game F1 Delta Time only have a little over 24 hours left before Animoca Brands closes the project. The blockchain gaming company couldn’t renew the Formula 1 license, and is therefore forced to abandon the project that kickstarted it all.
Animoca Brands and their F1 Delta Time game first hit the news in 2019 when they sold the car NFT 1-1-1 for $111,000 to Vignesh Sundaresan, also known as MetaKovan. Another major primary NFT sales happened when F1 Delta Time sold track segments, netting 9 million REVV or $223,000 for the Formula 1 Grand Prix de Monaco 2020 1A. MetaKovan also owns this NFT, alongside various other NFT race cars.
The F1 Delta Time NFT collection hosts a total of over 40,500 assets in the hands of more than 1,800 users. Over the past 90 days the project registered more than $110,000 in trading volume. Just yesterday someone spent 16,000 REVV or $1,627 on a Turbocharger car part. Team MetaKovan, the play-to-earn race team initiated by the Indian NFT investor, even acquired a $2,000 car part NFT just 2 days ago, adding to their collection of F1 Delta Time NFTs.
It’s clear that the announcement by Animoca Brands came out of thin air, a huge surprise to those involved in the community. Gamers can still win REVV and SHRD tokens until F1 Delta Time officially closes on 11:59 pm PDT, 16 March 2022.
What about all those investments?
That’s a very good question. Animoca Brands has detailed plans to reimburse gamers and investors, at least partially. For example, all F1 Delta Time car owners will receive replacement cars that they can use in REVV Racing. Furthermore, F1 Delta Time players can redeem their NFTs for a Race Pass, giving them access to future NFT mints and airdrops. Those who bought track segments, will receive vouchers for track segments in a future release of REVV Racing. Essentially Animoca Brands converts their F1 Delta Time community into REVV Racing users. For a more detailed read on all the replacement cars, NFTs, and passes, we refer you to the official blog post by Animoca Brands.
Of course the news doesn’t go well with everybody in the community.
Problems with licensed NFTs
Alongside MLB Champions, F1 Delta Time was among the first licensed NFT products on the market. However, when a license doesn’t renew the product itself needs to be pulled. This underlines the need for crypto native products that are formed in this digital landscape.
It will be interesting to see what will happen to the metadata. Will the graphics remain on the NFT, or do they need to remove the official Formula 1 brand mentions? Such a development would highlight the need for Web3 native products, preferably 100% on-chain like the CyberBrokers NFT collection.
In the comments on Twitter someone suggests people should jump into CryptoMotors, a project Animoca Brands is also an investor in. Their game is currently in production and they will probably launch an early version later this year. F1 Delta Time isn’t even the first racing game shutting down this year, as Battle Racers closed its doors in February. We suggested other racing games, including Riot Racers, Nova Rally and REVV Racing.
