NFTs and Gaming: Real Ownership in a Digital World with Examples
Gaming today, which a recent Accenture study shows, is a $300 billion industry with 2.7 billion players worldwide. From a board game called Senet, played in predynastic Egypt, to the invention of the first video game and most recently evolving to mobile applications, gaming has been a source of entertainment for mankind, for thousands of years. The gaming industry has been evolving rapidly in the past few years and is bound to continue this innovation trend and keep making groundbreaking technological advancements for the foreseeable future.
WHY NFTs in gaming?
Why NFT based games? You may ask yourself; what value do NFTs bring to the gaming world?
While game developers and publishers have had the monopoly on the financial benefits of gaming, for years; the recent evolution of blockchain in the gaming industry is allowing gamers the opportunity to get a share of this lucrative space, while also allowing developers to create unique and valuable in-game features.
NFTs or Non Fungible Tokens enable players to turn in-game collectables, assets and artefacts into real-world value.
For example, you own the items that you obtained in the virtual world and get real-life value by trading or selling them on a digital asset marketplace. The scarcity and ownership of these items or NFTs are secured by and recorded on blockchain.
In this article, we will take a look at some great examples of games that are utilizing NFTs and the power of blockchain to create innovative and revolutionary products in the gaming space.
SOME OF THE POPULAR NFT GAMES
Alien Worlds holds the top spot on DappRadar for 24-hour users in both dapps and dapp games, outranking the likes of Uniswap and has more than 1 000 000 users. Trillium (TLM), Alien Worlds’ in-game currency is on the Binance Launchpool and has been listed since 13th of April, with the pairs BTC, BUSD and USDT.
As pandemics were raging across the planet and human civilization appeared to be doomed, a Bitcoin mining organization made a discovery that altered the path of human demise.
The Federation, the most advanced Bitcoin mining organization on Earth discovered hidden messages in their algorithms, sent by a distant civilization in a far away universe. As they deciphered these messages, they discovered that it was a map to a wormhole, that leads to a distant metaverse.
Brave explorers entered through this wormhole and discovered a system of inhabitable planets. They began to build and set up a new civilization and a fair economy.
Alien Worlds consists of 6 planets with various characteristics and the recent partnership with Binance, led to the discovery of a new 7th planet. The game is based on NFT cards, which are the players’ avatars, minions and land ownership in the game. Explorers can purchase NFT packs, and stake them on the various planets to mine Trillium. Depending on their strategy, players may purchase and assemble NFTs that best suit their gameplay.
In the Thunderdome, players will be able to strategize and engage in battles with their NFTs to win Trillium, NFTs and of course glory. This will bring a whole new experience and excitement to the game.
Alien Worlds NFTs can be bought on 3rd party marketplaces such as Atomic Hub and can also be earned while mining Trillium in the game itself. NFT game cards include sections on planets, or land of which there are only a total of 3000. Owning one of these NFTs gives you the opportunity to earn commission from the Trillium mined on your land.
The tools needed for the production of Trillium and NFTs are:
*Weapons to battle other players
*Avatars and minions
* Artifacts
Trillium, the cross chain (WAX, ERC-20 and BEP-20) financial lifeblood of this NFT Defi Metaverse is needed for all in-game purchases and participation. TLM can also be staked to participate in planet governance or to increase your planet’s rewards.
Click HERE for more info.
Axie Infinity is a digital pet universe where players battle, raise, and trade fantasy creatures called Axies. Axie is the first blockchain game to introduce: A mobile application. The ability to earn money by simply playing the game. Axie has a fully player-owned economy allowing players to seamlessly sell and trade their game assets for digital currency. To enable this, Axie game assets exist as tokens.
The cheapest Axie that you can get right now is worth 0.05 Ethereum (~$26 as of writing). However, not all inexpensive Axies are good at fighting. It would be best to have a good team synergy, which involves comparing the Axies’ stats and cards.
The requirement to buy 3 Axies is a huge barrier to many. Fortunately, there are scholarship programs that help you get on board with the game without purchasing any Axies.
When you get accepted into a program, you can enjoy their benefits, such as training from the mentors, profit sharing, and many more (depending on the terms you agreed on).
A scholarship channel can be found on Axie Infinity’s official Discord server, so you can try your luck (maybe someone has available slots, so give it a try).
Click HERE for more info.
Evolution Land is a virtual management NFT game based on blockchain that supports cross-chain transactions. The game has 26 continents of which one is deployed on different public chains.
In gameplay, players can work together or fight against each other in activities such as mining, construction, PvP, scientific research etc to have fun and increase wealth in their blockchain based assets which are NFT’s. It is a virtual game world built on a blockchain and is also a DAO: decentralized autonomous community that allows users to create, experience content and applications, and thus profit.
How to play Evolution Land？
Users can purchase the land in Evolution Land by auction, while also being able to choose different occupations to participate in the game. For example, the miner can collect the gold, wood, water, fire and silicon materials produced on the land, and the smelter can synthesize the elements into props, etc. Evolution Land also provides casinos, arenas, etc. Players can play a variety of entertainment activities.
Click HERE for more details
Sorare is a blockchain based fantasy football (soccer) game, where players buy, sell, trade, and manage a virtual team with digital player cards which are Nft’s.
The game is built on the Ethereum network and was developed in 2018 by Nicolas Julia and Adrien Montfort.
Players, as managers compose virtual teams of five players from blockchain NFT cards on the Sorare platform. Teams are ranked based on the performance of their players on the real-world soccer pitch, and attributed points, just like traditional fantasy football.
The cards are licensed digital collectibles (rare, super-rare and unique cards). The use of blockchain technology means that digital cards have provable scarcity. The supply of cards is limited and cards cannot be altered, duplicated, or deleted.
Each player card is represented as a non-fungible token (NFT) using the ERC-721 token standard on Ethereum. Each player card is unique and is owned personally by the gamer, validated through the blockchain, allowing its value to appreciate or depreciate based on the market.
The licensing partnerships Sorare signs with leagues, such as the K League and clubs such as Real Madrid, allows the Sorare cards to have the official branding with the season’s player photos and player names.
In May 2019, the company announced a pre-seed round of EUR 550k including the technology entrepreneur Xavier Niel.
In July 2020, the company raised 4 million with German football World Cup champion André Schürrle, among others. They are also backed by UbiSoft, E-Ventures, Partech & Consensys.
In December 2020, the company raised another 3.5 million with World Cup champion Gerard Piqué, among others.
Click here for more info on them.
F1 ® Delta Time is a blockchain-based game that will utilise the Ethereum blockchain and ERC-721 and ERC-20 standards for non-fungible and fungible tokens, respectively.
F1® Delta Time is a blockchain game on Ethereum. The game centres around the collection and trading of unique Formula One Cars, Drivers and Components. F1® Delta Time consists of two main play experiences — Collection and Competition!
The Collectibles Game centers around obtaining and trading rare virtual items including Cars, Drivers, Components, and Trinkets. It adds gamification to the collection of non-fungible tokens (referred to as “Collectibles” in F1 ® Delta Time), adding layers such as achievements and leaderboards. The design of the collectibles component of the game simulates traditional scarcity-based collecting games or activities, like football stickers, baseball cards, or model collection.
The Racing Game will be a gaming experience similar to traditional racing games. The player will be able to take their Collectibles (Cars, Drivers, Components, Trinkets) and manage them into a race-ready Grand Prix entrant. Gameplay is presented through a 2.5D perspective overlooking the selected track, with the player in command of their racing car’s acceleration and braking.
More info can be found here
SOME OF THE UPCOMING HYPED NFT GAMES
My Neighbor Alice is a decentralized multiplayer builder game on the Chromia blockchain with a fully diluted market cap worth over 1.5 billion dollars.
Alice is the guardian of Lummelunda Archipelago, which is a series of 6 unique islands. Since she’s tired of taking care of the archipelago by herself, she has divided her islands into plots and she’s inviting neighbors to help build and nurture the land.
Players are represented by an avatar in the game; they can customize it by adding different assets to it and also interact with others.
My Neighbor Alice introduced a new generation of NFTs, called collateral-filled NFTs, or cNfTs. For example, the plots of land that players buy in the game, from Alice or the Marketplace are NFTs. When players purchase their plot, a portion of their payment gets placed in a special account associated with the NFT, this gives the player a choice in the future to sell their NFT back, for the cost of the locked collateral, or a portion of it.
In gameplay, players can change their plot any way they like by purchasing in-game items or assets, like lakes, animals, houses and so on. All of these items can be traded or sold on the Alice Marketplace or other NFT marketplaces on other blockchains. Players will also be able to create in game assets, using the platform’s NFT Creator and further benefit from their creativity, by selling these items on the marketplace.
Players can even rent their NFTs to other players in the game! This is all done through a special smart contract, which ensures that the renter cannot sell the item The smart contract also takes care of the rest of the rental specifics including the return of the item to its owner after the rental period is done.
Alice is looking to further expand on the NFTs by integrating Litentry’s DID and NFT technology and tools, which would allow players to connect NFTs with Twitter accounts, socialize with their friends and reward the ‘good land owners’ or players that bring value to the game through credibility ranking.
The My Neighbor Alice token, ALICE was introduced on Binance Launchpool on March 10, 2021 and their road map indicates that the full launch of the game is slated for January 2022.
While My Neighbor Alice is a game that will be open to all players and blockchain knowledge is not required to play, gamers who want to enjoy all the functions that the game has to offer will need to set up a crypto wallet and learn about NFTs. This will make Alice a great opportunity and platform to introduce new people to blockchain.
My Neighbor Alice is a DAO. For more info, click here.
Guild of Guardians is a mobile RPG which is inspired by Diablo and Dungeons and Dragons. The game takes place in a classic fantasy universe. There are dungeons to explore and monsters to be slain. Play as orcs, elves, humans or strange magical creatures and the biggest difference is the addition of NFT’s to have real world value of your virtual items Which will be easy to buy and sell on the marketplace.
The art style of the game has an aesthetic, low-poly style and all characters and combat is in 3D.
● Players actually own content which are released as NFT’s within the game, to retain and even increase the value of their in-game assets.
● Players will need to work together to progress. Trading with each other is a core component of Guild of Guardians (just like the real world economy)..
● A truly authentic and sustainable player driven economy: Large amounts of content in the game will be player generated. Players can bypass the traditional gacha system mechanics and get exactly what they need from the public marketplace. They also want some blockchain assets to only be made by players and for more info on them, click here.
ChainGuardians is an upcoming crypto-meets-anime NFT’s game based on the Ethereum Blockchain. The game just entered it’s Beta and anyone can start playing by visiting the ChainGuardians website.
The premium Guardian characters can be purchased using Ethereum on OpenSea or from the upcoming crate sale and are covered in depth by Ledeir in his series Meet the Guardians.
The in-game currency is CGC, which is used to buy NFT characters in the game like Soldiers, Randomizers and Lieutenants, also it can be used to customize the appearance of your NFT characters. Alternatively, you can summon NFT characters for free using crates. Every player is eligible to 1 crates daily. Check more info on them here.
Illuvium has raised $5 million to build a platform that combines non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, with a fantasy battle game. They plan to create a world that can support a variety of titles in multiple genres with the option to open the world to other developers.
In a decentralized ecosystem, Illuvium players will be able to immerse themselves in an explorable world that features NFT collectible creatures with “four-dimensional-shading holographic” NFT designs. During gameplay, Illuvials can be captured to gain power for ascending higher levels in the game or to earn crypto income by selling them on an exchange for Ethereum cryptocurrency.
For more info, click here
The Crypto Prophecies is a decentralised peer-to-peer price prediction game that uses NFT characters called Crypto Prophets.
● Wager your tokens and go head-to-head with other players for a fast paced magical showdown, where the winner makes all the profit.
● Prophets are rare NFT collectibles that you can customise with magical items to make them even more powerful and rewarding.
● Take heed of thy Prophets and enter the fabled Battle Arena. Choose your wager and go head-to-head in this zero-sum price prediction trading game. Learn trading candlestick patterns and use your Prophet to predict how each 10 second candle will close, to beat your opponent.
For more info, click here
Conclusion: Why Not NFTs?
After reading through the article and reviewing the preceding examples of NFTs and Blockchain based games your perspective has mostly likely changed.
Now you understand that adding these NFTs and blockchain features to a game empowers developers not only to add truly rare attributes and functions, but also to create a full blown economy within their games, enabling gamers and fans to own pieces of their favourite games that translate into real world value.
This essentially turns the gaming space into a viable gig economy where players have an opportunity to not only collect and benefit from the value of NFTs within games but also get a real world return for the time and effort they put into their gameplay.
Or maybe, you already understood just how revolutionary adding NFTs and Blockchain to the gaming space is and why even big traditional gaming companies like Ubisoft are diving in.
Maybe you have a great idea that can further advance the value that NFTs bring to gaming. The Seedify.fund IDEATHON is the perfect opportunity to bring your idea to life; providing exposure, funding and guidance that can turn your creativity into a powerful force in the NFT/Gaming Revolution.
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