Are you searching the Internet for new, exciting games to play? Of course, you may come across such offers as new MMORPGs, hot releases of your favorite shooters, or even no download free slots that may catch your eye. But let’s talk about entirely different types of games – NFT games.
For those who are not quite aware, NFT is a particular type of token with the help of which you will be able to digitize any goods. They give you the perfect opportunity to make money on what you love the most – games. Just let your creativity help you to do it.
What to Know About NFTs?
Before we get to the NFT games, what to expect from them, and what their future might be, let’s glance at the NFTs and how to use them.
We are all well aware now of what cryptocurrencies are – digital analogs of money created with the help of blockchain technology as their basis. The next stage in technological progress is creating tokens that became a way of digitizing all other goods from the real world. Tokens, like all goods, are divided into two types: fungible and non-fungible. If anything of the same kind can easily replace a product, it is interchangeable. For example, money and securities belong to this type. However, it is often difficult for a product to find an equivalent analog, which is called non-interchangeable. It could be, for instance, a country house, a work of art, or a trademark.
NFTs are different from each other, just like non-fungible goods in the real world. If one bitcoin is no different from another, then each NFT is unique. This property makes it possible to present information about any object from the real world in the blockchain.
Each Internet user has many digital things like photos, videos, game items, or documents in the cloud. But no one owns them. Instead, the company of a server is the actual owner. So, for example, in the game Counter-Strike, weapons are sold, but Valve Software reserves the right to change or remove them.
NFT secures the user’s ownership of digital goods. A non-fungible token is a label that stores a link to any product. If you have a token, you own the product described in it. If you don’t have a token, you don’t own it. So, the NFT weapon in the game will be sent to the player’s crypto wallet, and the developer will no longer have any control over it.
The second significant difference between NFT and other digital goods is the ability to manage. If you sell weapons from Counter-Strike by ad, then it is almost impossible to ensure the honesty of such a deal without mediators. It is as easy to exchange NFTs as trading cryptocurrencies, so the tokenized thing is easier to sell and buy.
Just so you can better picture it, all those goods can be represented as tokens:
- a tank of gas;
- a bottle of wine,
- pair of jeans,
- musical composition,
- gaming item,
- even cryptocurrencies, etc.
Tokenized objects acquire new unique properties that change the relationship between buyers and sellers.
Types of NFTs
All things differ in the degree of their uniqueness. For example, the artist’s painting exists in a single copy, and clothes are produced in large quantities. To define these differences, there are various NFT standards. The NFT standards on the Ethereum platform have become widespread: ERC-721, ERC-1155, and ERC-998
ERC-721. The developers of the CryptoKitties game created the first standard for NFT. Based on the idea of ERC-20 tokens, where each wallet address corresponds to a certain number of coins. The difference is that ERC-721 maps unique identifiers to owners’ addresses instead of the number of coins. These identifiers are links to a specific thing.
ERC-1155. This standard from the Enjin team brought the idea of “semi-fungibility” to the NFT ecosystem. Identifiers are classes of things. The developer sets a property for each class, such as the number of copies. For example, you have 1000 swords. In this case, your wallet will have one NFT with the identifier “sword” and the property – 1000 pieces.
This standard allows you to send multiple things of the same class quickly. For example, when using ERC-721, if a user wants to transfer 1000 swords to someone, he will need to change the state of smart contracts for a thousand unique tokens. On the other hand, when using the ERC-1155, only one operation is required.
ERC-998. The next in complexity is the ERC-998 standard. Such NFT stores information about the ownership of ERC-20 or ERC-721 tokens. Imagine a virtual game character who has virtual money and virtual clothes. The character will be an ERC-998 token, their money will be ERC-20, and their clothes will be ERC-721. When you sell a character, you also sell all of his possessions.
Some standards are not related to Ethereum. So far, Ethereum is the monopoly in the NFT market, but several standards also work on other blockchains. NFT can be supported by any blockchain that runs smart contracts: TRON, IOST, VeChain, Waves, NEO, Steem, and others. The DGoods project is already working on a multifunctional standard that can work on different blockchains. NFT Games
Now we are getting to the part where we discuss video games based on Blockchain NFT. They have become trendy in the last couple of years, especially from the position of making money.
The difference between an NFT and an NFT video game is that the latter is used to play against other players and helps the player to earn more non-fungible tokens. These NFT video games, called Play-to-Earn, are used to make digital money.
To start playing them, you need to make an initial investment or receive a scholarship from another player, the amount of which depends on let people start gambling without investing money.
NFT games are based on a cooperative economy supported by Blockchain technologies. They are decentralized to verify transactions, and all players have a share in the game winnings. Each game creates its financial ecosystem, and all trades and video game elements can be converted into real money.
Blockchain Games
Collectible games are the most pervasive area of the NFT ecosystem. The first successful project using NFT is the CryptoKitties game. It became so popular at the end of 2017 that players overloaded the Ethereum blockchain due to high activity.
CryptoKitties are about breeding virtual kittens. They can be crossed with each other to get offspring with a unique appearance. The rarer the appearance of a kitten, the more valuable it is. At any time, pets can be exchanged or sold for ETH.
The peculiarity of the game is that it is entirely built on the blockchain. First, each kitten is represented by an ERC-721 token. Secondly, the algorithm that determines the genetic code of new kittens is inside a closed source smart contract. Thirdly, the prices for NFTs are determined by the players themselves, and the developers do not interfere in any way.
Blockchain brings new features to game mechanics previously only available in physical games, for example, the creation of secondary markets that can work outside of games. Imagine that a virtual machine can be sent to another game, to an exhibition, or put up for auction. This is how NFTs work in the F1 Delta Time racing simulator.
The tokenization of non-fungible game items has already spread to many game genres:
- Collectible Card Game: Gods Unchained, Splinterlands.
- Animal breeding: Axie Infinity, Blockchain Cuties.
- RPG: Neon District, My Crypto Heroes.
- Sports: Sorare, Epics.
Blockchain games first drew people’s attention to NFT and showed the possibilities of this technology. But the scope of their use is not limited to this.
The Most Popular NFT Video Gam