Smart money backs PlaySide’s ‘Dumb Ways to Die’ NFTs

ASX-listed company PlaySide is up more than 30 per cent on its digital token sale, with NBA star Ben Simmons getting in on the metaverse action.

The Beans from Dumb Ways to Die, central characters in PlaySide’s leap into the metaverse with Bean Land.

Shares in ASX-listed video game maker PlaySide have skyrocketed after the company successfully sold 7000 of its NFTs – non-fungible tokens – based on 2D cartoon characters from the ‘Dumb Ways to Die’ Australian railway safety campaign.

PlaySide, one of Australia‘s largest independent video game developers, sold $8.4m worth of the digital tokens on Friday, generating essentially the same amount of revenue that it generated for the entire last financial year.

Dumb Ways to Die began life as a public safety campaign made by Metro Trains in Victoria in 2012, and it has since expanded to an animated video, a song, a video game and now digital NFTs worth thousands of dollars each. PlaySide bought the brand from Metro trains in 2021 for $2.25m.

The project’s success has sent PlaySide’s shares soaring, up 31 per cent to $1.33 early Monday afternoon, giving the company a valuation of about $192m.

The NFT marks the first step of PlaySide's’s leap into its metaverse – dubbed Bean Land – a PC and mobile video game which will use the Bean NFTs as central characters, with 3D avatars to be issued to Bean holders in 2023.

The company said it has amassed more than 80,000 followers for its Bean project on online chat app Discord, along with thousands of fans across TikTok, YouTube and Facebook. Melbourne-born NBA star Ben Simmons is seemingly a fan, holding nine of the “Beans” amid his fast-growing NFT collection, which is now worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

From left: game developers and partners Aaron Pasias, CFO, Gerry Sakkas, CEO and TJ Munusamy, COO. Picture: Nicki Connolly

“Developing BEANS and bringing the Dumb Ways To Die universe to life was the beginning of an exciting project that demonstrates PlaySide’s ability to stay at the forefront of developing technology trends,“ PlaySide CEO Gerry Sakkas said.

“We are extremely pleased with the outcome of our first Web 3.0 project launch which has been very well received and strongly supported by the community. DWTD is an iconic brand and since acquiring the portfolio last year, we felt there was an exciting opportunity to expand the brand into modern technology platforms. BEANS has been hugely popular since launching on Discord last month and we’re excited to take it to a wider audience, building on the foundations set by DWTD and the growing interest in Web 3.0 and the Metaverse.

“This announcement is only the beginning of the Metaverse and Web 3.0 journey for PlaySide, and we look forward to working on an expansive set of projects that implements our vision.”

PlaySide received net revenue from the initial sale of its NFTs but will also gain royalty-based fees on secondary market transactions. The company’s share price is up by more than 250 per cent over the past 12 months.

PlaySide is far from the only ASX-listed company entering the metaverse; The Australian reported last week that Creso Pharma – the ASX-listed cannabis company at the centre of a regulatory probe – is buying a “strategically located” plot of digital land next to rapper Snoop Dogg.

Creso announced it was teaming with innovation consultancy Collective Campus on several virtual initiatives, starting with a digital replica of its Mernova cannabis cultivation facility, to be known as the “Cresoverse”. The public will soon be able to tour the Mernova facility digitally, before popping over to Snoop Dogg’s residence for a glass of (digital) red wine.