Over the weekend I managed to win at @RoaringAuctions the ultra-rare and elusive CRUSADECARD & REVENGECARD for a little over 1 ETH a piece.
These cards were minted on @CounterpartyXCP in 2017 and have a supply of 18 and 20 respectively. BUT WHAT ARE THEY?
These two cards are from the project @ageofrust, which is created by @spacepirate_io. As you can see, these two cards (of a collection of ten) have not moved in quite some time. But why are they so rare and what happened to the game?
BUT FIRST! What is Age of Rust?
Age of Rust is a single player first person adventure game that combines puzzles and action. Age of Rust features blockchain assets for game items, these game items are crypto-items which are stored on a players wallet independent of the game.
You play as a rogue bounty hunter in search of crypto treasures, which require you to explore abandoned ships, mysterious caverns, and ruins on far away worlds.
The game has a native token called RUSTBITS and in 2019 the developers decided to migrate the game from @CounterpartyXCP to @enjin, where all RUSTBITS and gaming assets were redeemable 1:1 by burning your XCP in-game items and RUSTBITS to receive your new NFTs on Enjin.
After a successful migration and years into the game's development a free-to-play demo was released in 2021.
youtube.com/watch?v=oSRihA8C8B8
As AAA game development is already a tough practice, integrating blockchain capabilities exacerbates this process by extensively.
During 2022 the developers announced another migration, but this time from @enjin to the @0xPolygon.
After five years into development, two migrations, and overcoming many technical obstacles the gameplay and graphics look fantastic!
Although long delays are a recipe to kill any existing hype, the community is still around and eager to play Age of Rust when it's fully released.
Why are these valuable?
Some may debate this. Considering only two have sold in recent memory and the 2017 supply is extremely scarce. But, if the game launches, is fun, finds adoption and, becomes a recognizable brand, then these original assets will become highly coveted.
When you look at the history of "official" projects on XCP you see @ageofrust mentioned in every directory and timeline. As a collector of old jpegs the assets hold a foundation of history (narrative), timestamp (provenance), art (aesthetics), and could-be-success (impact).
Will we see more hit the market? It's really tough to ever know. If they do it's likely they will be sold through @RoaringAuctions so be sure the give them a follow. They've been holding XCP auctions since 2017! So if anybody knows who holds all of these tokens its RA!
Here are some Age of Rust links:
Medium: medium.com/@spacepirate-io
Discord: discord.gg/XW9UJc5Evk
And of course if you enjoy content about the History of NFTs then be sure to follow me and checkout some of my previous content documenting NFT History and Archaeology
twitter.com/jakegallen_/status/1560042567814696961