Atari to bring retro games onchain with Base

AtariX, the Web3 initiative of video game pioneer Atari, will bring its classic titles to the blockchain through a collaboration with Base, Coinbase’s Ethereum layer-2 scaling blockchain.

The collaboration starts with the classic arcade game Asteroids, a space-themed multidirectional shooter released in 1979. In the game, the player controls a spaceship and aims to shoot and destroy asteroids while avoiding them.

With the initiative, players can compete and rank up in a global leaderboard to gain prizes like a $1,000 Atari gift card.

Onchain arcade with NFT access pass

Through an onchain arcade, Atari is making classic games playable through Base. Users must connect their wallet and mint a non-fungible token (NFT) access pass. They will use the pass to play and record their scores on the blockchain.

Players can mint up to 1,000 NFT passes per wallet. However, the site says owning more than one NFT will not affect their scores in the game. The access pass costs 0.0015 Ether ( ETH ) to mint (about $5).

Asteroids can be played for free on various websites and retro game compilations. However, on the AtariX platform, the fee allows players to compete against other players, potentially win Atari gift cards, and participate in its ecosystem of games.

Related: Play-to-earn games are the reason ‘real’ gamers hate crypto: Atari founder

Classic games go onchain through the Ordinals protocol

This is not the first time the space has seen games go on the blockchain. On Jan. 8, developers at the Bitcoin Ordinals portfolio tracker Ninjalerts inscribed the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) emulator on a satoshi. This allowed the community to play classic SNES games on the Bitcoin network.

On Jan. 25, a pseudonymous developer called Mini Doge did the same thing on Dogecoin ( DOGE ) using the Dogecoin Ordinals protocol called “Doginals.”

The developer inscribed the 1990s first-person shooter game Doom on the network, allowing users to play the classic game on their computers and mobile phones by accessing the Dogecoin blockchain.

On Feb. 22, Ninjalerts inscribed a Nintendo 64 emulator on the Bitcoin blockchain. Ninjalerts CEO Trevor Owens told Cointelegraph that putting game emulators on Bitcoin is part of their effort to preserve critically endangered games. Owens believes there is no better place to immortalize data than on Bitcoin.

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