It has been long known that whatever video games you play, all the time and money spent is lost within the game and you don’t get any returns. But what if there is a way to actually own your in-game assets and earn real money by playing video games?
In this article, we discuss:
Traditional Video Games
What is Blockchain Gaming
Play-to-Earn with Blockchain Games
Traditional Video Games
Video games as we know them are accessible to players where they can either download the game for free or pay for the game to play it. These games offer enough value for users to keep playing as long as possible and also encourage them to make in-game purchases (currencies, skins, items, etc.) to enhance the player’s gaming experience.
Do you know someone who spends hundreds, or even thousands of dollars on in-app purchases to stand out or get ahead in a video game? Maybe someone who sank hundreds of hours into a game to earn the rarest weapon or cosmetic item? After purchasing or spending their time acquiring these in-game items, do they truly own the digital assets they spent their hard earned money and countless hours on? Not at all.
In traditional video games, ownership of digital items earned from playing the game and in-app purchases are retained by the developers. All of the game data, assets and currencies are trapped within the walls of the game. Developers have complete control over the assets and changing or deleting them would be fully within their discretion. Furthermore, once users stop playing the game or if the game shuts down, all the time and money spent are lost forever, leaving only memories of playing the game. But NFTs and blockchain gaming are changing that.
What is Blockchain Gaming?
Blockchain games use blockchain technology to allow gamers to have actual ownership of their digital assets. It provides transparency for players to see the existence of each asset on the blockchain in providing provable scarcity and preserving rarity of the asset. Blockchain gaming also allows gamers to monetize their time spent by being able to sell their NFT in-game assets or selling hard earned in-game cryptocurrency tokens to make financial returns on their time and money.
Ownership of In-Game Assets
Blockchain games allow gamers to have complete ownership of their digital assets through NFTs. This is a shift from traditional video games where ownership of the assets move from developers to the players themselves. Now with blockchain games, gamers who spent significant hours and dollars on the game can now have complete ownership of the items they acquired.
When users stop playing traditional video games or if the servers shut down, all the time and money spent is gone and the assets no longer have value. On the other hand, if the blockchain game stops existing or if the user decides to stop playing the game, the NFTs are still in complete ownership by the user because they are in the user’s digital wallets and not on the game’s server. This gives the user complete control and discretion as to what to do with their NFT.
Provable Scarcity and Uniqueness
Collectors find value in owning rare and scarce items in games, be it for collectability or utility reasons. With traditional video games, the rarest items available for sale or collecting is only restricted by an individual’s time or purchasing power, making a rare item becoming attainable for many players, making it less scarce and thus reducing the value of it’s rarity.
NFTs are scarce because there will only be a limited number of assets to be ever created and the number of NFTs available is verifiable on the blockchain. By capping the number of NFTs of a specific type of asset in the game, it protects the rarity of the asset. This creates additional value because the more limited the supply of the asset, the demand for it would naturally increase as the user base grows. Furthermore, these NFTs contain metadata, such as its origin, date created, serial number, etc which clarifies the uniqueness of each asset. As each digital asset is therefore unique, provably scarce and wholly owned by the players, this creates an economy where the value and prices of the NFTs in the game is determined by the users themselves, rather than the developers.
Monetizing Your Time
Players of traditional video games do not get any incentives or returns on their time and money spent on the game, where all the money goes to the developers. Once players stop playing the game, all their time and money is lost forever. With blockchain games, it introduces real-world use for the digital assets acquired by gamers. They do so by introducing the play-to-earn model which is revolutionizing the game industry.
Play-to-Earn in Video Games
Play-to-earn is the latest business model where users can earn real money by playing blockchain video games based around NFTs. This model introduces the opportunity for players to be rewarded with in-game rewards such as NFTs and cryptocurrency tokens. The more active users are in the game, the more players can earn from the game. These can be traded on the marketplace for real cash where the user can cover back their cost and earn a potential profit simply from playing games. This is a logical progression from the traditional gaming models where gamers spend countless hours and hard earned money to acquire in-game items only to never be able to interact with it after.
As previously mentioned, users are able to have true ownership of their digital asset and have complete discretion as to what to do with them. The NFT you initially purchased to be able to play the game? The game is getting more popular and you could sell the NFT for a profit. Own some rare NFTs and don’t have the means to purchase that other item you want? Trade your NFTs with players for other items. No longer interested in playing the game? Put the NFT on the marketplace where someone can buy your item and sell your hard earned cryptocurrency tokens for real cash. While these practices are familiar to traditional gamers, the play-to-earn model has created an economy that enables users to cover their cost and earn real money by playing games.
One example of a blockchain game is Gods Unchained. Gods Unchained is a free-to-play digital trading card game that gives players true ownership of their collection to battle other players online. Every player is able to access standard cards but are able to earn packs of NFT digital cards by levelling up and winning games in competitive mode which are stored in their digital wallet. From there, they are able to sell these rewards on the marketplace for cash.
Another blockchain game which is dominating the NFT space right now is Axie Infinity. Axie Infinity is a Pokemon-like blockchain game where users can trade, battle and breed creatures called Axies. Users have to purchase 3 Axies in order to play the game. While battling with other players or completing daily quests with their Axies, users can earn in-game cryptocurrencies called Smooth Love Potions (SLP) which can be sold for real cash. Look out for our next article where we take a look at Axie Infinity, and what makes them stand out in play-to-earn blockchain games.
