Slimed in the Metaverse: An Overview of Nickelodeon's web3 Strategy
Gluing nostalgia to web3 with mashup cartoons and green goo
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Overview template used with permission and in conjunction with Chris at Spatial Awareness.
For the last 27 years, Nickelodeon has invested heavily in digital content and services for kids. The cartoon powerhouse has lived through every era of the internet and now, partnering with RECUR, “Nicktoons” have now made it to web3!
This overview is going to dive into the nostalgic power Nickelodeon has harnessed, along with analyzing their quick move to web3 via RECUR and their current statistical state within the web3 ecosystem. Much like previous reports written by my Immutable Labs colleague kahris.eth, we will start with a timeline of activity, initiatives, POS system usage, on-chain analytics, and conclude with a SWOT analysis.
Timeline of Activity in web3
October 2021 - ViacomCBS (Paramount’s parent company) partners with RECUR to enter the NFT/web3 ecosystem.
July 2022 - Nickelodeon Mashup NFTs are announced
July 2022 - Nickelodeon: Rugrats x Hey Arnold TV Pack NFTs are released to whitelist users for mint
July 2022 - Nickelodeon: Rugrats x Hey Arnold PFP NFT collection begins minting for whitelisted users who opened TV Pack NFTs
July 2022 - Nickelodeon: Rugrats x Hey Arnold PFP NFT collection goes public on secondary market days after whitelist mint; Also, Nickelodeon adds their Slime NFTs to the collection.
August 2022 - Nickelodeon Mashup NFTs go live, allowing hodlers to mash up characters between the Rugrats and Hey Arnold! franchises through Slime NFT trade-ins and receive a 1/1 NFT of their mashed up character.
Initiatives
Nick.com (web1): Created in March 1999, Nick.com became the highest rated website for children aged 6-14 years old. The site was used in conjunction with their regular cable programming to create supplemental activities for kids to enjoy alongside viewing their favorite television shows. In 2001, Nickelodeon partnered with Networks Inc. to provide broadband video games for rent from Nick.com.
On January 6, 2006, Nickelodeon launched New Game of the Week, which was a service that showcased an Adobe Flash game based on Nickelodeon content. When the service was launched, Nick.com had over 228 million game plays in the same fiscal quarter.
In December 2018, access via desktop computer to most sections of the site became limited, as links to watch episodes and play games on the site currently all redirect to a page asking viewers to download the network's mobile and tablet apps for access to games and content. As of December 2018, Nick.com no longer makes online games. This is likely due to Google Chrome's changes that made access to Adobe Flash (which the site was built on for years) difficult to non-existent in line with Flash's phase-out during the end of 2020, requiring a large-scale rebuild of the desktop site that cannot be done behind the scenes.
On December 17, 2020, the ability to watch full episodes on Nick.com was brought back for those who were able to sign in through their TV providers. Nick.com maintains informational pages on Nickelodeon's current network programming lineup. Nick.com also streams Nick Radio, a radio network launched on September 30, 2013 in partnership with iHeartMedia.
Nicktropolis - The Club (web2): The Club was a massively multiplayer online role-playing game provided by Nickelodeon on Nick.com. It was a virtual community that used isometric 3D graphics and allowed users to play games, watch video clips and explore locations based on Nickelodeon television shows. Construction of "Nicktropolis" began in November 2004, by Nickelodeon's developers Mark Zadroga, Alex Westerman, Deborah Levine, Patrick Dorey, Sean McEvoy, and Jason Root. The game used the TheoSDK and TheoAvatarSDK engines. From August 18, 2006 to January 6, 2007, the game was closed to the general public for beta testing. Prior to Nicktropolis’s release, almost 3 million children had tested the game.
On June 24, 2007, the game was featured in The New York Times, with a quote stating "Pre-teenage viewers have a virtual playground to call their own." In September 2007, the Nicktropolis Newsletter was launched as an e-mail service to players, and in November 2007, the service became ad-supported. By July 3, 2008, Nicktropolis had over 7 million registered users. The service was redesigned as The Club on May 19, 2010.
Nickelodeon: Rugrats x Hey Arnold!(web3): Nickelodeon’s first foray into NFT web3 is hosted on nickelodeon.xyz, “powered” by RECUR, as the Rugrats x Hey Arnold! NFT collection. Nickelodeon NFTs are officially licenseddigital profile picture (PFP) collectibles based on retro cartoons from Nickelodeon’s anthology of franchises. The first Nickelodeon NFT collection sold on the Nickelodeon.xyz NFT marketplace debuted 10,000 unique portrayals of Rugrats and Hey Arnold! characters.
Following the release of the collection, Nickelodeon also announced they will be incorporating a rarity currency called “Slime” into their NFT collection, adding Slime NFTs into their collection. Each NFT minted in the original collection will contain a rarity score from 1-10 Slime, able to be traded for Slime once purchased. Once users collect 10 total Slime from their NFTs via the Splat Factory (A RECUR-powered minting mechanism within the Nickelodeon.xyz site), they can receive a one-of-a-kind Mashup NFT depicting two mashed up characters from each franchise (as teased below in a trailer put out by RECUR featuring music by Steve Aoki).
It is expected that more characters and franchises will be added to the Nickelodeon.xyz marketplace, and current hodlers of this initial Nickelodeon: Rugrats x Hey Arnold! Collection will receive benefits and minting opportunities for future projects.
POS System
While the Nickelodeon.xyz marketplace accepts fiat and several cryptocurrencies, you can get better deals on Slime and Nickelodeon PFP NFTs by purchasing them with ETH on OpenSea or other secondary market websites.
Accepted payment methods (at nickelodeon.xyz):
Fiat: USD via Visa/Mastercard direct payment
Crypto: USDC/ETH/BTC via Coinbase Commerce
Discord Info
Members: 95.7k
Bots:
Dyno - server management and moderation bot
InviteTracker - invite tracking, giveaways, and message tracking
Giveaway Bot - a bot for hosting giveaways
Portal Bot - a bot for RECUR Portal site content
RECURBot - In-house RECUR support bot
Nickelodeon’s Discord activity is hosted under RECUR’s parent Discord server, which is broken out categorically by each NFT/web3 project RECUR has deployed. Nickelodeon’s section is arguably one of the most actively utilized portions of the server, followed by Care Bears and the now-released Hello Kitty! NFT collections. RECUR uses hCapita verification to verify its users via its RECURBot, and uses its PortalBot to provide primary market activity snapshots to its users via its Nick-Tracker channel. RECUR regularly interacts with its user base, and posts minting events and challenge events to its Events channel for any of its collections (a 3rd challenge for Care Bears Forever NFT hodlers is currently underway on the server).
Nickelodeon NFT Stats & Metrics
Dune Analytics is utilized to view and create dashboards for brands that are on-chain. The following metrics were derived from freely accessible data generated via SQL queries. Each query is viewable online to see how the metrics were derived.
ETH Contract: 0x223E16c52436CAb2cA9FE37087C79986a288FFFA
Blockchain: Ethereum
Token Standard: ERC-721
Creator Royalties: 10.0% (Creator/Nickelodeon gets paid 10% of sales on secondary market)
Shout out to @poznyak_bogdan for the excellent Dune dashboard. You can find it here:https://dune.com/poznyak_bogdan/nickelodeon-nft
Nickelodeon’s NFT drop appears to be successful, yet short-lived. Most sales were executed during or immediately after the initial mint was over and NFTs began being listed on secondary markets. Since then, most purchases being made are for NFTs with low prices to burn and collect Slime for mashups, and without any metaversal utility for these NFTs, the collection sales have declined drastically. However, RECUR has already announced on Discord plans to release more franchises under its marketplace and provide utility to hodlers of the original collection, which will likely create more short but sharp spikes in volume and sales as they are incorporated into the system.
Secondary Market Analytics
Current floor price: Ξ0.03
Top current price: Ξ31,337
Average Price: Ξ0.0496
Past 7 Day Volume: $ 10,953
Past 24H Volume: $ 1,206
90 Day Avg Price: Ξ0.2273
90 Day Volume: Ξ1,735.3287
Total Volume: $2,638,550
Total Volume in Ξ: Ξ1,735
Virtual/In-Person Events
At present, Nickelodeon.xyz does not indicate any virtual or physical events are currently planned in association with their web3 products/services.
Tech Stack
RECUR-powered NFT storage profile
Opensea.io NFT store (customers pay with ETH)
Rarible NFT store (customers pay with ETH)
Minting and primary market website Nickelodeon.xyz
Social media presence via RECUR (Twitter, Instagram, Discord, YouTube)
Dynamic websites, utilizing CSS, JSON, and JavaScript
SWOT Analysis
Strengths
Has successfully repurposed nostalgic intellectual property over 20 years old with solid NFT deployment strategies (and their partnership with RECUR)
Nickelodeon is arguably first to the web3 game as a youth-targeting media network marketing and deploying NFTs and web3 content. Most interestingly, Cartoon Network and Disney are nowhere to be seen yet in this space…
Ambiguity with regards to the NFT’s prospective use allows for both young and old audiences to be marketed to
Slime NFT incorporation allows for natural NFT burning mechanics to maintain supply
Weaknesses
Nickelodeon offers no utility for its NFT collection on its supplemental websites or mobile applications, and offers no physical incentive for collecting their NFTs
Nickelodeon NFTs are not treated as independent of the greater collection of RECUR projects, somewhat pigeon-holing their content under RECUR’s portal and Discord server
Social presence (independent of RECUR) is limited to just Twitter. All other social media sources for Nickelodeon are again nested under the greater RECUR ecosystem
Collection appears to have many similar qualities to other RECUR projects, limiting uniqueness qualities of the NFTs outside of the franchise itself
Opportunities
Has dozens of franchises under its umbrella to pull from and use as content for future NFT collections
Can now quickly market and deploy collections via RECUR and quickly compound their existing collection with more characters, exponentially increasing the number of potential mashups
RECUR’s greater ecosystem allows for potential metaversal incorporation not just between Nickelodeon-centric franchises, but between any RECUR project
Threats
While nostalgia is great in short term sales, the lack of utility or external usage of their NFT collection outside of RECUR’s self-built portal limits interest and capability on the secondary market and greater blockchain
Lack of metaversal development and incorporation leaves opportunity for competitors to still be first to metaverse deployment
With regards to television-borne media companies, Nickelodeon getting to the NFT game first offers competitors a sample of what to do and what not to do when developing their own web3 content
Summary
Nickelodeon has a well-established foothold in youth-targeted media content and networking, with tenured expertise in the digital frontiers it has explored. While Nickelodeon’s NFT launch was well marketed and deployed, its lack of utility or metaversal use outside of its mashup mechanics and RECUR portal has weakened sales drastically since debuting their collection.
However, despite low-performing metrics, Nickelodeon’s wisdom with incorporating its content within digital ecosystems is unparalleled, and with a remarkable amount of intellectual property under its belt, I am confident future NFT/web3 products and services produced by Nickelodeon and RECUR have the potential to be very exciting, valuable…and slimy.
TL;DR:
Nickelodeon has provided competent and robust digital content for 20 years, and through its storied history Nickelodeon has clearly made fruitful technology choices in supplementing its network content
Nickelodeon has partnered with web3 content-builder RECUR to deploy its first collection of NFTs and a clear framework for trading within its own RECUR-powered ecosystem
A lack of utility for it’s existing NFT collection and lack of external use outside of RECUR or Nickelodeon’s Portal sites has drastically depreciated value over time since the deployment of their first collection
Despite low current volume, Nickelodeon has set themselves up with solid partnership and a ton of franchise potential to build and develop a larger web3 ecosystem
Need help with your web3 go-to-market strategy? Eager to dive into web3 and NFTs, but not sure how to approach it? Reach out to immutablelabs.io and schedule a chat with one of our experts!
Company Portals
RECUR Pass Portal Site: https://pass.recurforever.com/login/
Nickelodeon’s Marketplace Site: https://nickelodeon.xyz/
Social Media
Discord (RECUR): https://discord.com/invite/recur
Twitter: https://twitter.com/nickelodeon_nft
YouTube (RECUR): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1ED-Lk9ITfQqA4URhwiVAQ
Instagram (RECUR): https://www.instagram.com/recurforever/
References
"Nick.com updates to bare-bones website: videos, games gone". Nickandmore!. December 17, 2018.
"Nickelodeon Launches Nicktropolis – A Quick Look Under The Hood".
Shields, Mike (January 29, 2007). "Nickelodeon Launches Nicktropolis Web Playground". MediaWeek.
Itzkoff, Dave (2007-06-24). "Nictropolis in the New York Times". The New York Times.
David Kaplan (2007-01-29). "Nickelodeon Jumps On "Virtual City" Bandwagon: Nicktropolis For Tweens".
Joanna Roses (2007-06-18). "Nickelodeon's Nicktropolis Reaches Almost 4 Million Unique Registered Users in Just Four Months".
"MTV Networks' Nickelodeon Launches Nicktropolis: Unprecedented Immersive Virtual Community Playground Featuring Gaming, Video and Social Interaction". PR Newswire. 2007-01-29.
“Rugrats & Hey Arnold! Nickelodeon NFT Drop Includes Steve Aoki Remix”. NFTNightly. 2022-07-11
“Nickelodeon’s Rugrats and Hey Arnold! Characters are Coming Soon to RECUR”. Medium. 2022-06-17.
“Rugrats and Hey Arnold! are almost ready to collect, trade, and slime 🧡 💚”. Medium. 2022-07-11.
“Slimy Seconds: Guide to The Nickelodeon NFT Marketplace”. MoneyMade. 2022-07-29.