Warner Music Enters Metaverse With Splinterlands Tie-Up

Warner Music Group has entered into a partnership with the blockchain-based trading card game Splinterlands. The deal marks the game’s first major music partnership. 

Warner and Splinterlands Join Forces

Warner Music Group has tapped one of the most popular blockchain games for its latest partnership. 

The music behemoth announced Wednesday that it had entered into a partnership with Splinterlands. Developed by the company of the same name, Splinterlands is a fantasy-themed collectible trading card game first launched on the Hive blockchain. 

Splinterlands lets players own their in-game assets as NFTs stored on Hive. Players can also earn SPS and HIVE token rewards by playing the game and participating in the Splinterlands community. According to data from Dapp Radar, Splinterlands was the second-most-played blockchain game over the last 30 days.

Warner’s partnership with Splinterlands will give its artists opportunities to create and develop unique, play-to-earn, arcade-style blockchain games. Oana Ruxandra, Chief Digital Officer for Warner Music Group, highlighted what the new partnership means for the company, stating:

“I don’t think we can underestimate how massive the opportunity around play-to-earn gaming is. By partnering with Splinterlands to build custom tokenized games, we’ll unlock new revenue streams for our artists who have an interest in the space while elevating the role of fandom and community.”

In addition to their play-to-earn mechanics, one of the biggest draws of blockchain games like Splinterlands is that users can play them from their mobile devices. By focusing on accessible, mobile-friendly games, Warner and Splinterlands say they can facilitate wider adoption and foster community building more easily than traditional play-to-earn games.

Over the last year, blockchain gaming has exploded in popularity amid growing interest in NFTs and the Metaverse. Sky Mavis’ NFT-based play-to-earn game Axie Infinity soared during the 2021 market boom and landed a $3 billion valuation in October. As the hype continues, Splinterlands and other titles are also hoping to benefit from the niche’s rapid growth. 

Warner, meanwhile, is the latest of several music industry titans to take an interest in the increasingly mainstream world of cryptocurrency, NFTs, and the Metaverse. Universal Music, one of the Big Four major record labels alongside Warner, jumped onto the NFT bandwagon in November by launching a Bored Ape Yacht Club supergroup called KINGSHIP. Snoop Dogg, meanwhile, just dropped a set of NFT “stash boxes” for his B.O.D.R. (Back On Death Row) album and bought Death Row records. The rap superstar turned Metaverse mainstay says that he wants to turn the legendary hip-hop institution into the first major NFT label. 

Disclosure: At the time of writing this piece, the author owned ETH and several other cryptocurrencies.