Castlevania is celebrating a huge milestone this year, its 35th birthday, and Konami has opted to give it a lump of coal in a slightly torn sack to celebrate. But it has a couple of burnt out candles so it's not all bad.
There are a few NFTs available as part of the Konami Memorial initiative but they aren't purchasable online like its an Amazon storefront. There are a few auctions scheduled that you can go to online. There, you'll bid for original Castlevania receipts. As with any NFTs, you can only pay with cryptocurrency, so you'll even get a nice chunk of environmental damage to go with your gifs and concept art.
"This is an iniative to create art NFTs using beloved in-game scenes from Konami titles, and for our fans to preserve them for many years to come," the page opens. "Purchase of Konami Memorial NFT does not entitle you to any intellectual property rights (copyrights, trademarks, etc.)."
This probably won't be the only Konami series to get the NFT treatment. With the page dubbed "Konami Memorial" and not being explicitly linked to Castlevania, this is more than likely a beginning - a kickstart. Expect all manner of NFTs to go up for auction, especially with Metal Gear Solid's 35th anniversary happening this year. Solid Snake NFTs, eFootball NFTs, and hell, maybe some Silent Hill NFTs to sweeten the deal.
If you decide to fork out the big bucks and get yourself a JPEG or two, you'll even get your nickname listed on Konami's Memorial page for a few months. But if you sell your NFT in that time, your "privileges" may be revoked. To take part in the auction, you need a cryptocurrency account and a wallet, and then you bid like it's your dad's eBay account trying to pawn off a slightly broken DVD player he's had in the garage for a few years.
But all of this is incredibly harmful to the environment as the mining process used to acquire cryptocurrency consumes an incredible amount of energy - one Nyan Cat gif cost the equivalent of an EU resident's electricity usage for a month. But more and more games are buying into the NFT racket, so Konami won't be the last. That much is certain.