Paramount’s new Star Trek NFTs utterly miss the point of Star Trek

Paramount is launching its NFT market / metaverse / annoying advertising and marketing stunt that fans are already angry about with Star Trek non-fungible tokens (or NFTs.) The corporate partnered with Recur to create a platform known as Paramount.xyz, which it says will “deliver Paramount’s beloved leisure entities, manufacturers and characters to the metaverse.”

Paramount is aping what’s labored for giant NFT tasks up to now; the Star Trek NFTs will depict “algorithmically-generated starships” and may be bought on the low, low worth of $250 per pack. Packs, by the way in which, include a single ship — which solely has round an 11 % likelihood of trying just like the Enterprise. You may (however completely mustn’t) assure that you just’ll get a cool ship by shopping for the “Admiral pack” as an alternative of the “Captain pack,” however you may solely get these for those who’ve shelled out for a Recur go — one other NFT that prices no less than $290.

The ships are saved in what Paramount is asking “Star Trek Continuum,” which is what the corporate describes as “an experiential hub that may home this primary and all future seasons of Star Trek NFTs.” These “future seasons” will contain accumulating crewmates and doing obscure, unspecified missions in line with Paramount’s roadmap.

By way of what that “metaverse” or these experiences will really appear to be, Paramount’s press launch has loads of phrases that principally add as much as a hand wave: “Recur and Paramount are constructing a roadmap of in-real-life utility over the course of this multi-year partnership and Continuum holders will get entry to unique perks, occasions and content material increasing on the utility of the NFTs digitally and in-real-life.”

This isn’t the primary time we’ve seen Star Trek NFTs. The model has been placed on the blockchain within the type of digital Funko Pops and licensed choices on different platforms. And, as my colleagues, Chaim Gartenberg and Adi Robertson identified, every time it occurs it looks like a little bit of a slap within the face to every little thing that Star Trek is really about. (I’m positive it’s only a coincidence that each video essayist describing post-scarcity “luxurious automated area communism” makes use of Star Trek imagery to explain it.)

This time round, although, Paramount goes all in. It’s pitching Star Trek Continuum as only the start of Paramount.xyz, and it threatens… er, guarantees that it’ll add franchises from Nickelodeon and Paramount Footage subsequent. Sure, that does imply that we may see SpongeBob NFTs subsequent. And sure, I suppose that does imply I’ve gotten to the purpose in maturity the place I get to see my childhood pillaged.