Konami sells Castlevania NFT map for £19,000 – get it for free by right-clicking

metro.co.uk:

Somebody has spent just over £19,000 for an NFT of a Castlevania map, even though anybody can easily download it for free.

Rumours of Konami making premium video games again, with new Metal Gear and Silent Hill titles, had people hopeful that it was trying to salvage its reputation. Then it got into NFTs…

Earlier this month, Konami announced an auction for a collection of Castlevania NFTs. The auction has now ended, and all 14 items have been sold, with the highest sale price being just over $26,000 (around £19,000) for a pixel art map of Dracula’s castle from the first Castlevania game.

The purpose of the auction was to allow fans to purchase unique ownership of these Castlevania assets. As Konami writes on its website, ‘This is an initiative to create art NFTs using beloved in-game scenes from Konami titles, and for our fans to preserve them for many years to come.’

Here’s the funny/depressing part. You can get the exact same map someone spent over £19,000 on for free just by right clicking on it and saving it. Go on, do it. We did and there’s no loss in quality either. Konami can’t stop you. The person who paid for it can’t stop you. It’s yours.

The owner does have the option to sell ownership the NFT should they choose to, but it baffles the mind why anyone would pay even a single dollar for something they can just as easily be acquired for free.

It’s not even a particularly good map. While it is technically original art by Konami, it’s useless as a guide and honestly looks like something anybody with a DeviantArt account and access to MS Paint could throw together.

As cynical and stupid as the whole thing is, the fact that it has proven profitable will only encourage more NFTs sales in the future, including from other