We may not be using the M-word much these days, but between NFTs and ai, it's under construction and in play, regardless of what we call it.
We may remember the Imaginary Ones of the bubbly NFTs sold for over $10 million in just under 4 minutes back in April 2022. The company is now moving from an nft collection to an entertainment universe. The multi-year project is expanding its web3 offering across consumer brands, developing games and producing movies and family-friendly content, and it's just the beginning.
Later, in October 2022, Imaginary Ones teamed up with Hugo Boss to deploy 1001 specially selected NFTs, sold out in 10 minutes. The partnership has spawned limited-edition products online and in stores, with reports suggesting record sales for the German fashion giant's best-selling capsule collection. Those highways, whether literally or symbolically, are beginning to connect with audiences around the world, as they also see Bubble Rangers, a hit game from Imaginary Ones that is now evolving into a mass entertainment ecosystem.
Imagining the imaginary
The Singapore-based startup was co-founded by Clement Chia (CEO), a self-taught animation artist, and David Lee (COO), who co-founded OFFSET.SG and OFFEO, an award-winning motion design and digital content platform. with a turnover of more than 20 million dollars and more than 100 global clients such as Netflix, Coca-Cola, Google, Nike and more. Chia has collaborated with global brands such as Black Pink, Samsung, L'Oreal, Sotheby and more, and has seen over $100,000 auctioned for his finest works of art.
Known as 'Cmttat' on social media, the co-founder rose through the ranks with years and years of trial and error designs. In 2021, the Singaporean collaborated with a luxury jewelry brand. Van Cleef and Arpels for their Prulée collectionbringing it to life on the digital screen.
The evolution of imaginaries
After the initial success of the 8888 Imaginary Ones nft, the project launched its next phase called Imaginary Rides. These were 20,000 NFTs carefully crafted on the ethereum network; The collection was made public on May 8, 2022. What started as a campaign quickly gained a lot of attention when Imaginary Rides rolled out its Bubble Rangers intergalactic racer, where players drove joyous vehicles and competed to win it all.
Ridiculous maximalism encouraged players to compete online or against friends via their global leaderboards. The social game campaign generated during 6 million views in 3 weeks.
Since its beginnings, The imaginary ones has been as ubiquitous and popular as a web3 project can be. Their nft hits and gaming campaigns routinely attracted hundreds and thousands of users to their platform, where a cottage industry emerged from their 'Bubble community', centered around Imaginary Ones and their plans.
After months of planning and development, the company launched its first mobile game, Bubble Rangers, available on iOS and Android. Since early 2023, the game has seen a resurgence, with more than 250,000 people logging in last December. Anyone who still thinks of Imaginary Ones solely as that dumb racer will be surprised to learn the full extent of the company's true ambitions.
Bubble Rangers is an endless runner game, much like the infamous Temple Run or Subway Surfers. Co-founder and CEO Clement Chia says he wanted a more family-friendly game with simple mechanics so anyone could pick up and play it.
Over the past few years, Imaginary Ones has steadily expanded its flagship title into something more akin to a platform or marketplace than just an indie game. Over the years, his seasonal psychedelic events, attempts to create kid-friendly YouTube channels that generated over 5 million views, and collaborations with big-name brands gave clues to these big plans. Imaginary Ones has tripled down by announcing six new games that follow the same “pick up and play” style of gameplay.
That list of new games was already ambitious, but upcoming developments in an entirely new native utility cryptocurrency token, animated movies, and other big-name partnerships to seamlessly integrate the worlds of web2 and web3 are on another level entirely. The company also recently announced a collaboration with Immutable to take advantage of its zkEVM technology to continue developing mobile-centric experiences.
Why do brands need web3?
With Imaginary Ones, consumer brands find themselves in an exciting position of needing something they probably couldn't do better on their own.
Imaginary Ones is light years ahead of its peers in web3 gaming experiences. Making smooth, fast, and fluid gaming experiences for crypto projects is often technically complex and expensive.
Co-founder Clement Chia said: “Blockchain's entry point for mass adoption will be through games and consumer brands. The technologies developed by web3 projects must be easy to use, understand and adopt.” Companies that can reach non-crypto global native audiences through brands can instantly gain a user base without having to build it from scratch.
The benefits will also extend the other way, where companies like Hugo Boss can surpass their own retention metrics through the power of Blockchain and through virtual and augmented reality experiences. Major brands such as Disney recently announced collaborations with Fortnite to create a universe of entertainment that appeals beyond the Battle Royale gaming community. Brands that enhance their offerings through technology initiatives can attract younger and older users and broaden the ecosystem's appeal to broader audiences.
Web3 games and their business models are also key to their potential success in the traditional market. In the Imaginary Ones ecosystem, for example, the games are free as the company makes all things related to nft and Blockchain completely optional, which aims to rotate through virtual stores daily.
Concepts such as digital asset ownership have been on the rise for some time. If the popularity of character designs in different games or limited edition products in different brands is any indication, gamers will be eager to collect their favorites and display them in the gaming world, in whatever form.
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This article is educational material.
As always, do your own research before making any type of investment.
