One thing has remained consistent across all applications of NFTs: they are a demonstration of the unprecedented potential of blockchain technology. In the early days of crypto, most early adopters were drawn to the idea of blockchains because of their disruptive potential in the financial world. But with NFTs, that disruption occurs across a wide range of industries.
NFTs have gradually gained traction among internet savvy users who have used this technology to launch careers in a myriad of creative industries, namely music and art. However, in an industry that seems to be a match made in heaven for blockchain technology, its market has resisted the idea of incorporating blockchain elements into its products: gaming.
And then is a blockchain game?
Simply put, blockchain games – also often referred to as crypto games and NFT games – are video games integrated with blockchain technologies such as cryptocurrency and NFTs.
Okay. But how does blockchain gaming work?
Most of the time, these integrations come from having players’ in-game assets minted as NFTs or can be used as cryptocurrency. The associated earning potential has led some to refer to blockchain-based games as play-to-earn (P2E) experiences.
The idea of hosting in-game assets on the blockchain started in 2017 with CryptoKitties, which focused on the mechanism of being able to trade and collect bred virtual cats even outside of the crypto game client. One of the early fans of this game was Trung Nguyen, who later created Axie Infinity – a current leader in space – after months of obsessed with the virtual cat NFT game.
More ambitious projects like Decentraland and The Sandbox offer blockchain integrations beyond tokenizing in-game assets. These games provide users with tools to create their own assets, from wearable items to full metaverse experiences.
What not to do when making a blockchain game
While today’s best NFT games generally feature blatant P2E game mechanics, the long-term future of blockchain integration in the game industry may need to reduce this coverage significantly.
For example, while P2E games have gained a lot of support online, large parts of the larger gaming community remain skeptical (if not downright hateful) of new developments taking place on the internet thanks to blockchain technology, otherwise known as Web3. If you find yourself unaware of all this vitriol, a cursory search for the term “NFT” in widely read gaming publications Kotaku tells you everything you need to know. So where does all this hate come from?
Much of it comes down to what happens when blockchain game developers make games as cynical as possible. When Brazilian game developer Mark Venturelli gave a passionate talk about how P2E games could threaten the integrity of the game industry in general, he had these kinds of games in mind.
So what are they? Are there developers trying to tokenize? Big Rigs: Road Racing? Or looking for a way to reward players with crypto every time the player’s character lets in an F-bomb Rogue Warrior? (Wait, that doesn’t sound like such a bad idea in retrospect…)
Far from. At worst, blockchain games — especially P2E games — can essentially act as a second job for a large portion of its users. Grinding for in-game rewards and currency suddenly takes a much more dystopian turn when in-game performance can determine whether there’s food on the table or not. With these kinds of potential bets on how a game rewards you, what Venturelli described as the escapist fantasy essential to an enjoyable gaming experience is perverse.
Straighten out priorities
Blockchain game developers have started to recognize these concerns from angry gamers and traditional game developers. Upcoming titles from various blockchain game development studios are now billed as play and earn experiences – distinctly different from their P2E game ancestors.
For example, after two decades in the video game industry, South Korean game developer Wemade recently set his sights on blockchain gaming with the release of Mir 4 – a full-fledged MMO experience with blockchain integration. As part of its plans to build a full platform for blockchain games, Wemade plans to use upcoming releases to improve the perception of P2E games.
“You don’t get rich playing games on the Wemix platform. The reason we focus on playing AND earning — not playing to earn — is that the economic reward is only a small part of the whole experience,” said Wemade CEO Henry Chang in an interview with nft now. we offer are well-made games that are fun to play. The economic reward is not the only reason why you should play the games on the Wemix platform. It is there to make playing the game even more exciting,” said he.
Are P2E games really that simple?
Okay, if the right approach to building a blockchain game is to create a really fun game rather than systems that bring out a user’s potential to earn in-game, then why don’t developers do this just to prove all the haters wrong ?
The short answer is: because game development really, For real difficult.
It’s so hard that instead of building its own game from scratch, the NFT Worlds team relied on a team of experienced Minecraft mods to build a potential competitor to the Decentralands and Sandboxes of the world . As such, they host their entire ecosystem on Minecraft’s servers – which goes against the spirit of using blockchain technology in the first place.
With Minecraft’s ban on NFTs and all blockchain technologies on all of its servers, NFT Worlds should finally do the work and make its own game. Here’s hoping that, at the very least, the game will be fun.
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