The Play-to-Earn (P2E) NFT gaming model is disrupting the traditional way we interact with video games. Introducing the Web3 native ideas of ownership and interoperability into gaming will change the industry forever. 

NFT gaming presents opportunities that have never been seen before. With nearly 3 billion video game players worldwide, it’s only a matter of time before the model takes over. Wouldn’t you rather play games and earn real money?

What is NFT Gaming?

NFT Gaming typically works where the player purchases an NFT. The NFT will allow entry into the game and typically serve as the character. The actual in-game play scenarios are extremely similar to regular video games. The difference is that instead of purchasing a game, the user purchases an NFT. 

In-game assets and currency could all be NFT and cryptocurrency related. NFT gaming is introducing real ownership of digital assets. Imagine playing GTA (Grand Theft Auto) and being able to sell houses or cars for ETH tokens. Instead of in-game currency being worthless, it could be vital to the game’s ecosystem and be traded for physical money in the bank. 

How many people have spent entire days on video games and have nothing to show for it? What if Fortnite skins were owned and tradeable on an open market? What if Call of Duty maps could have been traded after use? Ownership of in-game assets makes the entire NFT gaming industry much more exciting than traditional games. 

How is NFT Gaming Changing The World?

Ownership of in-game assets adds a level of seriousness to video games. NFT games will still earn money for developers, but through the royalty fees earned on the secondary market of assets being traded. Players should be able to sell a character that is highly in demand and took a long time to unlock. Players should be able to trade virtual houses, cars, animals, weapons and other in-game assets in exchange for real currency. 

Imagine a Minecraft house that took months to build. If Minecraft shuts down, what happens to the house? All the work that went into it? NFT gaming is introducing the idea of interoperability, where in-game assets are not only transferable for money but transferable to other games. The interoperability of assets guarantees safety despite the popularity or age of the game.

When users utilize the P2E model in NFT gaming, gaming could provide a serious income. In fact, when COVID first hit, many people across Asia turned to P2E games for income. Without the ability to physically go to work, these NFT games allowed some to still put food on the table.

NFT Gaming In Action

Four players in the NFT gaming space stand out based on popularity and game quality. Animoca Brands, Gala Games. Axie Infinity and Dapper Labs. All four have gained millions of users since launching and are notorious for pushing the boundaries of NFT gaming. 

Animoca Brands, the creator of the Sandbox, has been introducing the NFT gaming model to Free-to-Play games throughout it’s portfolio. These games have become very popular in the NFT gaming space and serve as an excellent onboarding method into blockchain. 

Gala Games builds several games and aims to be the NFT gaming powerhouse of blockchain. The founder previously founded Zynga Games which reached hundreds of millions of users via Facebook. Gala has launched popular NFT games like Town Star, Fortitude, Grit and Battle Star Galactica. 

Axie Infinity did over three billion dollars in NFT sales volume in the year 2021. Axie was one of the first ultra-popular NFT games, really catapulting early on during the most recent bull run in 2021. 

Flow blockchain by Dapper Labs is a major player in the NFT gaming space. The company has released games like NBA TopShot, NFL All Day, Cryptokitties and more. After Cryptokitties crashed the Ethereum network due to popularity, the team developed Flow specifically for NFT gaming. Most recently, Flow partnered with Coinbase to bring NFTs to Instagram.

The Future For NFT P2E Games

NFT games are not as popular right now and are not being warmly accepted by the video game community just yet. This is largely due to the graphics involved in the games. Many blockchain games are building platforms that can withstand billions of transactions at any second, without fail. This has never been done before, not without 1960s-looking graphics. Better quality games graphic-wise, often mean they cannot support as many people as they would like. 

As NFT gaming developers start to focus more on design rather than technical infrastructure, games will look better and gain more popularity. Plenty of games are already of sound quality and can be found at Rainmaker Games. The platform offers ratings, game information, social media feeds, public reviews from other players and even see the highest earning games. 

If you enjoyed this article check out how NFTs are Disrupting The Traditional Music Industry and GRT: The Web3 Version of Google or Cryptocurrency Credit Cards.

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