SNEAK PEEK
- James Zhang believes that the crypto bear market has hit the NFTs hard.
- According to him, people are now more cautious about what they buy.
- He is an artist, investor, and currently the founder and CEO of Concept Art House.
James Zhang, a video gaming industry veteran, said in an interview that the crypto winter has hit the NFT market hard in the last few years. Zhang began his career as a concept artist at LucasArts, the studio behind the Star Wars video games.
According to him, the bearish crypto market has made things difficult for NFT creators, web 3.0 gaming companies, developers, and investors.
Describing the effects of the bear crypto market on the NFT industry, he said,
first, those low token prices have caused people to be more careful about what NFTs they buy; second, that venture funding has to last longer; and third, new token launches are no longer a major catalyst for growth in the NFT space.
The CEO and founder of NFT art consultancy Concept Art House also raised the issue of not giving enough credit to the NFT artists. He also shared his concern about how NFT artists are underpaid in the industry.
He said that the right compensation for NFT artists is a controversial topic in the community. Zang brings out both sides of the issue. According to him, on the one side, artists are underpaid for their creative work. On the other hand, due to declining NFT prices and the downtrend of the crypto market, companies believes they are paying the artists based on what they are currently worth.
He strongly believes that artists must seek assistance from agencies to secure their payments and also monetize their creations. With his Concept Art House, Zhang is now looking to empower NFT artists by helping them monetize their art in the Web 3.0 space.
He said,
We want to create a really powerful artists’ network that can credential and identify who an artist is and what they’ve worked on in web2 and web3. So instead of creating one [piece of] IP, we want to create a platform that’s really friendly for artists in web3,
Zhang’s Concept Art House, launched in 2008, has worked with NFT giants like Dapper Labs and comic book creator Frank Miller. In the past 14 years, his company has worked with video game companies. However, for the last two years, they have been more focused on assisting web 3.0 gaming companies, crypto firms, and brands that have no experience in the art and gaming sectors.
