The Asylum Halls: Why Art Matters in NFTs
The Asylum Hall Genesis is the latest NFT to explore different marketing strategies being developed with high-production quality. Engaging narratives posted on Twitter were able to accelerate interest in the free mint project from around the various NFT communities without a Discord community.
Unfortunately, reveals of poor art caused a sudden setback in the value of the collection, showing that traders do hold regard for artistic style and quality. Though this poor art reveal resulted in a sudden drop in floor price, it does show how successful art from previous collections is capable of sustaining an influential impact on the market.
The Digital Experience
Since the popularity of Goblintown stormed the NFT community, marketing through Twitter has shifted its focus from whitelist grinding and community announcements to surprise releases and free mints.
This approach has shifted the way that new NFT projects are advertising themselves amidst the current crypto market crash which has had a major negative impact on NFTs.
By finding a new way to promote projects through organic curiosity, as opposed to paid advertising under the veil of alpha calling, projects are finding new ways to engage with their audiences without the cookie cutter methods from before the crash.
Marketing a Narrative
The Asylum Halls Genesis project took this new approach to the market by setting up a series of videos that were posted on Twitter.
These videos were made in line with the lore of the project, depicting a mysterious, insane asylum with a TV screen full of static in the center. A voice began to narrate over this video, going into an analysis of the riches most NFT traders hoped to gain through crypto.
The narration had a strong effect on viewers with the high-quality production; telling a relatable story that questioned the community’s sanity. The themes of the narration were a little similar to the concepts being portrayed by GodHatesNFTees and CopeBears which celebrate the absurdity of NFTs.
NFT Origin Rumors
It didn’t take long before rumors about the team behind Asylum Halls began to take over. People watching the videos on Twitter began taking note of different symbols and esoteric dates, believing that it was related to Larva Labs and the CryptoPunk collection. This was similar to GoblinTown which had the same rumor spread about Yuga Labs.
These rumors turned out to be false, but they still generated a huge amount of attention and trade volume before the reveal. However, most people failed to realize that the Larva Labs does not host their images on IPFS, they store their metadata on-chain. This is easily checked by looking at the TokenID for any Asylum Hall NFT which is stored on IPFS.
While we can acknowledge that most NFT traders are not aware of this fact, it still shows that these types of rumors, whether they are true or not, still create an impact and make people excited about the project.
An Ugly Reveal
When the time came for the art to be revealed, many were upset at what they saw - a derivative. The artwork was too similar to Goblintown and it made many people upset to see such an original project turn out to be nothing unique at all.
The floor price crashed immediately as people exited the collection; hype for the project ended in an instant. With such original lore, the anticipation for original artwork was high.
The message was clear - the art matters. What people got was nothing more than a copycat of another project. Although some derivatives such as The Saudis can do well, NFT traders do have a strong desire for unique work and it showed as soon as the art for Asylum Halls was revealed.
Influential NFT Artwork
The artwork of NFTs is one of the most common things that most people - traders and non-traders alike - criticize. For the people on the outside looking in, the artwork for most NFTs is unattractive and hard to understand. While many people that are active in the NFT ecosystem claim that the artwork is unimportant - they only care about the profits.
However, that couldn't be further from the truth. If we take a more objective perspective, we can see that the artwork from GoblinTown, which is highly original, has spawned a plethora of derivative collections such as Goblin Girlz and Gremlin Town.
These collections speak to the power of that unique art style and how impactful it has been over the last month since its mint. NFT traders, whether they’re in NFTs for the art or the profits, are trading collections inspired by unique ideas.
Without Goblintown’s art style, Asylum Hall and many other similar derivatives (which have all generated Ethereum volume for the communities) would have never happened.
At the end of the day, the art does matter and the success of a collection can be measured in the number of derivatives that it influences.
When considering making an NFT project, do take serious thought into how unique the artwork will be. While the intentions of most traders are not uniform, the result of new styles and themes does create an impact. The market acknowledges original art.
