How NFTs are disrupting the gaming landscape?

The NFT bandwagon presents an intense craze for minting & acquiring these unique possessions such as music, arts, pictures, videos, or almost anything, among millennials. More & more people are now becoming a part of the NFT marketplace to simply sell & purchase these Non-Fungible Tokens as valuable digital assets. 

The net NFT trading volume increased from $2.67 billion in December 2021 to 6.86 billion in January 2022, as per data from The Block Research, revealing that the overall transaction volume or NFTs surged thrice within a month. 

It’s not just trading, the dramatic rise of the NFT market has stirred the gaming community. In a recent study by the Global Market Estimates, the global non-fungible tokens market will grow at a rate of 185% from 2023 to 2026, & gamers are expected to be a big part of this growth. 

Whether you’re a game developer, game enthusiast, or a gaming company, the future of NFT gaming is all you need to focus on at this time. 

Looking upon the endless possibilities of how NFT can disrupt the gaming segment, we’ve got this piece of article to explain & scrutinize the power of NFT games. 

NFT in gaming: A concept of Play-to-Earn 

NFT entered the world of gaming with the introduction of play-to-earn games like Axie Infinity which recorded all-time high sales of $1 billion. The massive popularity of NFT games influenced the scope of growth for the blockchain gaming market. 

While NFTs have already popularized their innovation for transforming the way creative assets can be auctioned & traded on digital platforms, NFT games are now set to revolutionize the entire gaming industry with life-like 3D avatars. Let’s see how!

NFT gaming is centered on the play-to-earn business model that primarily involves crypto gaming & blockchain technology. In other words, gamers can earn while playing certain money-making video games as they get rewards in form of NFTs which can be sold & bought on the blockchain or other crypto platforms. 

Players can earn when they sell the rewarded NFTs on a dedicated marketplace & transform their in-game currency into digital earnings. 

One example of NFT in gaming, Axie Infinity allows players to buy Axies (digital avatars) & use them against other teams of Axies, as a part of this most-played play-to-earn game. These NFT Axies are developed & sold using SLP, which is an in-game cryptocurrency used for trading real money via Ethereum Blockchain. Axie Infinity players can also play various games available on the platform to earn crypto.

With such a diverse NFT ecosystem, gaming businesses are more than interested to explore opportunities to attract & engage players. Decentralized is another play-to-earn virtual reality game for those who want to trade their NFTs, across virtual space. Its in-game cryptocurrency is MANA to be used for transactions. 

NFT in gaming enables owners to play, earn & create whatever they want with their imagination. On this virtual land, they can build casinos, art galleries, and own video games to share with other players. Decentraland offers complete ownership of the virtual land to its users, which is powered by the Ethereum blockchain. 

Interestingly, one of the virtual land in Decentraland sold at a price of 1 million dollars last year.

After digital arts, posters, & even 3D statues of celebrities, NFTs are anticipated to rule the gaming space, paving the way for the crypto market. In addition to Facebook, Microsoft, Roblox, Tencent, Epic Games, and Animoca Brands are some of the many companies that are already exploring the NFT gaming space. 

Most interesting & expensive NFT games 

As more & more investors using stock trading platforms like Robinhood and collectors are desirous to join the blockchain craze, NFTs in gaming are gaining traction in the market – and most of them are even paying high prices for them.

Take a look at the most funded & prominent NFT game projects in the market:

#1 Angel - Axie Infinity

As mentioned in the previous sections, Axie Infinity is far ahead in the race of popularity as it's one of the most influential NFT games. 

In the third quarter of the year 2021, its trading profit surged eventually to generate revenues, accounting for $2.08 billion of the total $2.3 billion in overall NFT game trading volume. 

That quarter solely accounted for 83% of the game's $2.5 billion in trade volume. The major factor behind the increased interest is that users are earning real money, with some claiming to make up to $100 in a day. 

One of the digital players, Mystic Axie “Angel” was sold for 300 ETH (1.1 million USD). As per the most updated data available, the average price of an Axie is $45.68. 

Axie Infinity also has a constant supply of 60,907,500 coins with an estimated net worth of $2,782,235,638. 

#2 Dragon - CryptoKitties

CryptoKitties needs no introduction to gaming enthusiasts. It's an Ethereum blockchain-based game dedicated to the sale, breed, & trade of digital cats. CryptoKitties was one of the first entertainment games that uses blockchain technology for gaming purposes (read more about the use cases of blockchain in insurance).    

Each virtual cat has its own DNA, similar to real cats, & same goes for their characteristics, known as 'c-attributes,' which may be passed on to progeny. 

One of the developers of Cryptokitty Game says that each virtual cat is unique and cannot be replicated or moved without the owner's consent. 

The recent sale of a CryptoKitty named “Dragon” was marked as 600 ETH (around 1.3 million USD at the time, but this number has since increased) which is one of the most expensive in-app purchases to date.

Moreover, Wrapped Basic CryptoKitties were trading at $4.58 in USD on 14 March 2022. 

#3 Hyperion - Gods Unchained

NFT in gaming was also observed in Card games which remains a popular option for NFT projects as they go well with the collectible nature of NFTs. 

Gods Unchained is undoubtedly one of the biggest. There are several NFTs available in the game, but just one sticks out clearly - Hyperion. 

Hyperion is one of four Genesis Titans in Gods Unchained and is a rare, unique card (there is only one). It sold for 137 ETH, which was around $60k at the time of sale. Its current cost would be more than half a million dollars. 

You can even discover about NFT in gaming at the recent NFTNYC2022 conference updates.  

How to get started with NFT game development? 

Not all players in NFT gaming are winners, most of them fail or get banned due to refraining from negative headlines. 

However, in the race of emerging as a successful NFT gaming company, businesses prefer to approach a reliable product partner like Hie HQ for Fintech app development, where a team of NFT game developers goes ahead with some approaches, as follows;

Game Economy behind the NFT game

Based on the game theme, the token and game economics for the NFT games need to be determined. A tokenomics model must be designed to use NFTs to complement the gameplay. 

To state an example, in an NFT-powered game, it is important to design multiple opportunities for players to win and collect tokens and NFTs. An additional advantage would be to allow users to stake their NFTs and get rewarded in tokens.

NFT games with DAO and governance tokens

In 2021 NFT game development, DAO has become a trendy word. DAO means Decentralized Autonomous Organization. Most of the upcoming NFT games have DAO planned in their roadmap. That’s because a DAO helps players get involved in the decision-making of the game's future. They could participate in simple tasks like a vote on the allocation of NFT sales to any charities or vote on the introduction of new features or designs and later on, as the community matures, they can also help make decisions about the game-play and game development.

NFT trends in the gaming industry

The Gaming industry is driven by trends and NFTs are trending right now. The use of NFTs across different games like having a metaverse and convergence of NFTs with virtual reality has really taken the center stage.

NFT farming

Many NFT-based games are allowing gamers to use tokens to farm new rare NFTs. For example, the token holders who stake their token are rewarded with special cards, decks, or chests. 

These NFT items could have two types of rarity then – visual rarity or game-play rarity. Speaking of that, the visual rarity NFTs when farmed will include items like a background, a card frame, or more.

On the other hand, a game-play rarity-based NFT item would be a weapon that could provide players with an advantage over the rest of the players.

Play-to-earn models

The Play-to-earn model is nothing new to the gaming industry. However, blockchain has made it fairer and NFTs have made it more lucrative. 

By playing blockchain-powered games, gamers get fair rewards; can participate in the decision-making of the game development; and can earn or farm NFTs which can be used across games.

Noting all the factors behind the high demand for NFT game development, experts at Hie HQ predict the shining future of NFT in the gaming market.  

However, our expertise in co-building high-end & scalable products is beyond the market trends. Our spectrum of startup-centric services combines quality, creativity, innovation, and the professional work style of our dedicated product engineers. 

Our tailored approach to co-build products with our clients encourages us to scale your product exponentially. Want to know more about our services & how we strategize to do it? Contact us today & check the projects in our portfolio.