Atari joins the Enjin multiverse, bearing NFTs for 'Kick Off' reboot

Gaming giant Atari has announced a collaboration with blockchain game ecosystem Enjin, which will see its iconic IP and licenses integrated into games within the Enjin multiverse.

The first fruits of this collaboration, according to a Dec. 10 blog post from the company, will be a range of cosmetic nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, for use in a brand new addition to the legendary football game franchise, Kick Off.

The original Kick Off was released in 1989 for the Atari ST and Commodore Amiga, and was described in reviews at the time as the "best footy game to have appeared on any machine"

Developer eBallR Games is bringing the series right up to date and into the blockchain era, with the forthcoming Kick Off Evolution, scheduled for a Q2 2021 release into the Enjin multiverse.

Enjin is an Ethereum-based platform providing a range of tools for developers to easily integrate blockchain features into their games. The Enjin multiverse is an ecosystem whereby individual games built with Enjin can share assets between game universes in the form of NFTs.

Enjin’s Director of Business Development, Alex Russman, enthused about the Atari partnership, saying:

“We are very excited about this collaboration with Atari and its initiation with our latest Enjin Adopter, eBallR Games. Atari resonates with all ages as the household name synonymous with gaming and its belief in blockchain shows the maturity of this technology and the tools now available."

Atari has been making strides into blockchain and the blockchain gaming market of late. In March it announced a similar collaboration with The Sandbox, licensing its classic IP for use within the Sandbox universe.

The upcoming reboot of Atari’s classic VCS will feature blockchain technology as standard, as Cointelegraph reported in September.

The company even announced and then launched its own token, the ATRI, planned to provide a unified token for the blockchain gaming community. Unfortunately, following several mishaps during the sale, the token price plummeted 70% once trading began.