The Beeb has announced it’s “entered the blockchain games space” (hurgh) by creating a digital trading card game for PCs and phones based on Doctor Who.
It is, apparently, “the first time any BBC IP [intellectual property] has been cleared for use on the blockchain.” What a cursed sentence.
The game, called Doctor Who: Worlds Apart lets you collect and trade characters from the show, as well as fighting your mates in turn-based matches. You play as The Doctor, obvs.
So where does blockchain come in? WELL:
Each trading card a player collects will be tokenised into a non-fungible token (NFT), secured and protected on the blockchain.
Look, to be honest, it’s Friday, it’s humid as all hell, and even if neither of those things were true we wouldn’t have time for this nonsense.
The word salad above basically means that digital items and trading cards in the game each will be unique, unable to be copied or stolen (or, more realistically with blockchain stuff, totes able to be stolen with a near-useless record of where they went).
From October, you’ll be able to buy limited edition digital packs of five trading cards – which is nowhere near as exciting as buying an actual pack of five football cards in the newsagent was in 1997 – which may or may not contain rares. All the Doctors, companions, friends and enemies from the series will be in there.
You can have the Abzorbaloff. You’re welcome.
Apparently, once the limited-edition cards have sold out, they won’t be back again – you’ll only be able to get them by trading.
Although the first lot of cards comes out this October, the actual PC game isn’t coming until next year, with “mobile to follow.” You’ll be able to get more cards when the game actually exists, says the Beeb.
John Kavanagh, Licensing Manager, Gaming and Interactive at BBC Studios comments:
“This is what BBC Studios does so well, exploring new technologies and bringing our most iconic brand to an area of the gaming industry which we’re sure will engage and thrill fans.”
Engaged and thrilled. If you can’t tell, that’s exactly what we are.