How the ‘Star Wars’ Stormtrooper landed in Solana’s NFT game MixMob

MixMob, a Solana-based gaming brand, announced Thursday that it will add the Stormtrooper character from “Star Wars: A New Hope” as one. NFT A collectible and playable feature for him Racing 1 game Develops a racing and card-based strategy. But there are some interesting things about this license agreement.

While the licensed character is the iconic Stormtrooper from the original 1977 Smash sci-fi film, this deal was not brokered by Disney or Lucasfilm, or anyone representing them. Instead, the deal is with Shepperton Design Studios and original “Star Wars” prop maker Andrew Ainsworth.

Ainsworth designed the iconic white-armored soldier from the first film. Decades later, when it began manufacturing and selling replica helmets based on its own designs, Lucasfilm brought in its lawyers, sparking a years-long legal battle. Ultimately, when all was said and done, Ainsworth secured limited rights to commercialize the design.

And that's what you'll see in MixMob: “The Original Stormtrooper” feature. This isn't a Disney deal or an extensive “Star Wars” license game — but the official Stormtrooper design from the prop maker that first brought it to life.

A MixMob representative confirmed to Decrypt GG that the game studio cannot use Star Wars branding and that the deal is limited to the “New Hope” armor design in this case.

Still, it's a memorable piece of a major pop culture franchise coming to NFT Games that aims to provide a taste of “remix culture,” and the studio says it plans to bring other licensed characters and content to MixMob as a mobile version. The game is scheduled to launch in Q2 2024. MixMob is looking to announce three more license combinations this year.

Sales details for the Stormtrooper NFTs have yet to be revealed. According to the team, owners of MixMob's Gen0 Masks and Gen0 MixBots NFTs will be given “prior access” to minting.

MixMob's Solana-based Administration token, MXM, is up nearly 15% on the day with data above $0.10. CoinGecko. The token started on February 1 Airdrop to reward early players and NFT ownersset an all-time high of $0.1136 last week.

Edited by Ryan Ozawa.