The Metropolitan Museum of Art has launched a short-session Web3 game, Art Links, that invites players to identify common threads among works of art.
This is the first Web3-based experience at The Met. Designed in partnership with the art and tech platform TRLab, this mobile-first, browser-based, blockchain-powered game presents a new way to engage with the Museum, and offers the opportunity to collect special in-game non-fungible token (NFT) badges and win in-person and digital rewards.
Art Links launches today and is available on The Met’s website. The serialized game, which releases new challenges weekly, features over 140 works of art from across The Met collection. Upon successfully finding art-based connections—or “chains”—between works, players can claim free NFT “badges” and earn “achievements” by tackling in-game challenges. After the January 23 launch, new challenges will be released on Thursdays at 12:01 a.m. EST for 12 weeks.
The game is available via the web and can be played on screen readers for those with vision impairments, said Brett Renfer, senior product manager of emerging technologies, in a press briefing.
If you’re a gamer, you may be aware there are a lot of people that look down on games as a form of artistry, but that’s getting harder to say when a museum like The Met gets involved in gaming.
The goal is to find missing art links: words, materials, art works or emojis. It’s played in three rounds, with each round getting harder. You can read an art work’s label and a fun fact about the Met and its history. If you get a prize and complete three, you can get an NFT. It’s a 12-week game, and each week has unique content. There are seven achievements total, with five free and two you can purchase for $15 each. A grand prize is a year of membership or a private tour with the curator.
The goal is to attract Web3 enthusiast, art fans and casual gamers “and show there is a place for all of them at the Met,” Renfer said.
Players who earn achievements are entered to win exciting perks. Themes that players will discover during the 12 weeks include: “Objects in Disguise,” artworks made from surprising and sometimes deliberately deceptive materials, such as Paper Med No.18 by Su Xianzhong; “Art x Tech,” with works that touch on artists’ dialogue with technological innovation across time, including Matthew Jensen’s The 49 States; and rewards, such as Museum exhibition catalogues, discounts at The Met Store, and private, curator-led tours.
“This groundbreaking online game is an exciting first for The Met and a singular experience in the
museum field at large,” said Max Hollein, The Met’s Marina Kellen, French director CEO, in a statement. “By bringing works of art from collections across the Museum—from Modern and Contemporary Art to Asian to Egyptian Art—players can broaden their engagement and understanding of culture and creativity in a fun and compelling way. Art Links truly exemplifies how The Met continues to connect audiences to ideas and to one another while exploring emerging technology.”
The works of art featured in the game were selected by Destinee Filmore, assistant curator in the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art, and a cross-disciplinary team from across The Met’s vast collection. Each chain includes at least one work from The Met’s collection of 20th- and 21st-century art, placing these works in a broader creative context.
Filmore said in a briefing that the game features four types of connections: “Highlights,” showcasing key works, artists, or movements; “Material,” focusing on how works are made; “Emojis,” highlighting signs, symbols, and visual culture; and “Web3,” showing how artists across time have engaged with core concepts underpinning the blockchain, such as randomization, security, and ledgers. “Harlem as Muse,” featuring artists who looked to Harlem as a subject and source of inspiration, including Romare Bearden, Faith Ringgold, and Jacob Lawrence.
Audrey Ou, CEO of TRLab, said in a statement, “As a company at the forefront of art and technology, we’re committed to creating new ways for audiences to discover, engage, and immerse themselves in art and culture. Partnering with The Met on its first Web3 experience reflects our belief that deepening connections between creators, collectors, and fans is the future of art. We’re combining digital innovation with artistic expression to create truly transformative experiences.”
Ou said in a press briefing that the idea is to make art more accessible to wider audiences, and it sees blockchain for tracking participation and rewarding engagement. The aim is to make the game “sticky,” where people will come back over 12 weeks.
In each game, players create a chain that consists of seven artworks and six connections. The connections can be words, emojis, or artworks. The chain is completed in three rounds, with each round becoming progressively more difficult. Players have four attempts to complete each chain correctly. No prior knowledge of art history is required to play, and the game includes built-in learning moments—accessible through an icon on each digital representation of art—to discover more about the work and the artist.
Players can collect 12 free badges, one for each weekly chain, with opportunities to earn seven achievements linked to in-game challenges. Five of the achievement tokens are free, while two tokens can be purchased at an affordable price. (No purchase is necessary to enter or win.) Built on Base (Coinbase’s L2), the game accepts cryptocurrency and credit card payments through MoonPay and Stripe.
The game was built with universal accessibility in mind and features screen-reader friendly code along with visual descriptions of all in-game artwork and imagery. These features were developed in partnership with The Met’s Access team and individual testers from The Filomen M. D’Agostino Greenberg Music School.
Art Links will be featured on The Met’s website as well as on social media. The Museum lives in two iconic sites in New York City—The Met Fifth Avenue and The Met Cloisters. Millions of people also take part in The Met experience online. It was founded in 1870.
TRLab unites artists and technologists to develop fine art collectibles that foster deeper connections between digital artists, collectors, and fans. Driven by a mission to make art more collectible through innovative, hybrid experiences combining digital and physical art, TRLab has successfully designed and launched innovative art experiences with artists, estates, and institutions. TRLab’s notable collaborations include “The Calder Question,” a multi-season educational project developed with the Calder Foundation.
A women-led company, TRLab was co-founded in 2021 by CEO Audrey Ou, a Rockbund Art Museum board member and chairwoman Xin Li-Cohen, a nonexecutive deputy chairman at Christie’s.
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