NFTs are Transforming Digital Art and Fractal Blue Entertainment Shows Off Awe-Inspiring Space-Themed Pieces

It’s 2022 and digital art has exploded online. Beeple’s The First 5,000 Days NFT sold for over $69 million in March of 2021, the highest-selling digital art piece in history. In January 2022 alone there were over $3.5 billion in sales according to nonfungible.com’s market tracker. Browse online you’ll see all kinds of NFTs- strange monkey vectors, pictures of cats, and colorful collages- just to name a few. You might be scratching your head thinking, “Do these actually count as digital art?” or “What do NFTs have to do with anything?”. We’re going to shed some light on the topic while introducing you to Fractal Blue Entertainment: the VR game development studio offering awe-inspiring space-themed NFTs.

Meet VR Gaming Studio Fractal Blue Entertainment

Fractal Blue Entertainment (FBE) is a new cutting-edge virtual reality game development studio with a drive to create immersive games and experiences. Their team is a collective of creatives, artists, developers, writers, designers, and gamers. Their parent company is multi-award-winning VR studio Visual Purple that creates life-like VR training simulations for the US Airforce, Nuclear Power Plants, Security Teams, and other high-risk occupations.

FBE is creating games focused on space exploration. Their first early access game launch of Lunar Odyssey in February 2022 was created referencing detailed NASA mission documentation and the physics of space exploration to create the most authentic life-like space experience possible. It uses current topographical satellite scans of the Orontius crater, exact dimensions of the Lunar Module 2, and a precise VR replica of the xEMU NASA Spacesuit. These elements combined with cutting-edge VR technology result in a stunning, high-resolution, and life-like experience.

FBE is also entering into the NFT space to create the most realistic space-themed pieces of digital art on the market.

A Brief History of Digital Art

To truly understand where NFTs are positioned in the art world, it’s helpful to know the origins of digital art as an artistic medium.

In the late 1950s Ben Laposky, a mathematician and graphic artist, took long exposure photographs of electronic waves to create “oscillions”. He is credited by the Victoria and Albert Museum as being the first digital abstract artist. While technology evolved and the digital art space continued to grow, the term  “digital art” wasn’t coined until the early 1980s when Harold Cohen created AARON, the first computer program able to create art through a knowledge-based system. Digital art became more widely known to the general public with the creation of MS Paint during that same time period.

Since the early 2000s and with the rise of accessible web technologies to artists, digital art has exploded. Miguel Chevalier, a prominent French visual and digital artist says “Digital art can explore new territory. I believe that is really a new kind of aesthetic of the virtual that is emerging… It is, for me, the art of the 21st century.”

Are NFTs Really Digital Art?

Yes, NFTs are a form of digital art that can be created and appreciated. But they are also financial instruments. Digital pieces are sold with a unique record through the blockchain process to verify ownership- also known as minting. An NFT can be minted (registered with blockchain) in the form of virtually any digital asset: graphic illustrations, pictures, or video game clips just to name a few.

NFTs have already transformed the art world. Alex Marshall, an artist and director at Silicon Valley Bank points out, “Just because NFTs can also serve as financial and certification instruments, that doesn’t mean they aren’t art. In some ways, they’re better than traditional art because there is transparency into ownership and the artists continue to get royalties.” NFTs will continue to be used by digital artists and creative companies as a way to verify ownership and collect royalties long after the hype fades away. Justin Sun, a top Chinese American tech entrepreneur is quoted saying that they will “revolutionize the existing trading model in the art market, especially for digital art.”.

What Makes Fractal Blue Entertainment’s NFTs Valuable?

Determining the value of art isn’t black and white. It’s an open discussion, but there are common answers and a widely-accepted standard: art is determined by the person experiencing it. It is subjective. However, not everyone views art this loosely. Realism, originality, emotional appeal, and labor can dictate the worth of a piece depending on an individual’s tastes and preferences.

 Fractal Blue Entertainment’s NFTs appeal to digital art admirers who appreciate realism and the vast amount of time put into creating them. Their first batches of Space: For All Mankind NFTs are short-video clips of country-branded astronauts stepping foot on the moon. They were designed from real images and references of the official NASA xEMU Spacesuit and NASA satellite scans of the Orontius moon crater.

Individual NFTs colorfully display a country’s national colors in the spacesuit design, and shoppers can purchase one-of-a-kind country-specific designs. The Space: For All Mankind NFTs include the 14 countries that currently have space programs. They are currently being sold on OpenSea. Other brands, such as SpacePunksClub or The SpaceBulls have made space-themed vector graphic NFTs. These colorful fantasy digital art pieces are impressive but aren’t realistic or scientifically accurate like FB’s Space: For all Mankind NFTs.

As a VR gaming studio with extensive experience in 3D technology, FBE is creating the most realistic space-themed NFTs currently on the market. In the NFT and game development phase, they poured through thousands of pages of official NASA documentation to base their designs and models on. Their Space: For all Mankind NFTs have taken every spacesuit element into consideration: the portable life support system, display control module, helmet, gloves, etc. to create top-notch digital art.

Fractal Blue Entertainment, NFTs, and Blockchain Gaming

NFTs aren’t just staying in the digital art space. Blockchain technology is revolutionizing the gaming industry and NFTs are a huge part of that. NFTs are being used as in-game items such as skins, weapons, or other goods that use blockchain to verify ownership and allow trading. In many games, NFTs can be removed from the game ecosystem and sold and/or traded on platforms such as OpenSea.

When done right, blockchain technology offers decentralization, immutable (non-deletable) transactions, and security of objects. When done wrong it can frustrate gamers by adding paywalls, unnecessary microtransactions, and an unfair playing environment.

Ubisoft has received extreme backlash from the gaming community over its incorporation of NFTs that have caused microtransactions that force gamers to spend to improve. Fractal Blue wants to enter into the gaming industry and incorporate NFTs into their space, but remove the microtransactions and paywalls that don’t allow for fairness on the platform.

FBE plans on launching games that incorporate NFTs as wearable skins, but with zero microtransactions or paywalls needed to advance. They believe that every game released needs to have “fun” always put first before the implementation of NFTs. Fractal Blue’s NFTs are digital art at the core and are made for users who appreciate the extreme detail, labor, and realism within the creative work that Fractal Blue will continue to produce.

Find FBE on OpenSea.

Find Lunar Odyssey on Steam.

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