Research conducted by the insight agency Opinium suggested that 47% of respondents out of 197 video game developers based in the UK and US have already incorporated NFTs into their games. 58% of them are beginning to use blockchain tech. According to the study, the top three benefits of blockchain technology for the video game industry are innovative gameplay (61%), securing value for players by keeping money in the game (55%), and rewarding players with real-world value (54%).
NFTs are converting the gaming industry in a number of ways. One of the biggest impacts is how they’re changing the way players interact with each other. The ability to trade NFTs with other players has already revolutionized how gamers interact with each other and their favorite games, and it’s just getting started.
This is a positive thing for gamers — but what about developers? How does this impact them?
In short: it’s helping them make more money. This opens up a whole new world for developers and players who have been looking for ways to monetize their game experience without limiting their creativity.
Most of the games are developed by small teams, with limited resources. Developers have to spend money on marketing and promotion in order to increase their brand value and attract users. This is not only expensive but also time-consuming. Players also expect high-quality content from the game developers, which requires more time and money.
NFTs change this dynamic for good by providing a new way for developers to raise funds for their games. They can now sell their assets to players, who can use them as they please. This means that players will get more content for less money, so it becomes more profitable for developers as well.
This enables developers to focus on developing high-quality content and creating more engaging experiences.
Some of the benefits of NFTs in Gaming
- Ownership: in traditional gaming, purchases are made once and are non-transferable between games. However, in NFT-powered gaming, players have a privilege to the assets, and they can even resell them to other players or transfer them to other related games.
- Rare: the one thing that collectors look for is scarcity and authenticity. By making in-game NFT purchases rare, a gamer can hold a rare asset that will be embedded in the underlying blockchain. The public Ledger will validate the unique nature of the NFT and its ownership.
- Interoperability: traditional games are found on centralized servers, and hence in-game purchases are found in proprietary systems that do not communicate with each other. Games based on NFTs are decentralized and found on independent blockchains. For example, two games based on Ethereum can support similar purchases, including characters.
- Immutability: NFT online gaming protects user in-app purchases. When traditional games are shut down, the players can lose all their in-game purchases. However, with NFT games, one can still trade the assets regardless of what happens to the game. Blockchain-based games are also not duplicable.
It’s not all roses
The benefits of using NFTs in the gaming industry come with some limitations. One drawback is that they’re non-recoverable, which means a player can lose his/her assets forever if something goes wrong during the transfer process.
This means that when you lose the wallet where your NFT is stored, there is a very slim chance that you can recover it.
For this reason, you need to value their NFTs in the same way as any other valuable assets you own. You, therefore, have to ensure that your digital assets are protected.
NFTs are shaping the future of the Gaming industry
Ubisoft became the first major publisher to include NFTs in a title, which might have heralded a monumental shift in using blockchain technology in gaming.
Truth be told, the experiment wasn’t very successful and had to be taken down due to poor execution and community criticism, but that didn’t stop Ubisoft from going all in, and they are promising NFTs in more games soon, according to a statement on their Quartz website.
This is just the early days of a major shift akin to free-to-play and mobile.
While the benefits of adopting NFTs in the gaming industry outweigh the limitations, it is also crucial to evaluate how the future looks for this sector. One major issue that needs to be addressed is equipping consumers with the required knowledge. Even during this convulsive period, NFTs are a booming market, but a lot of people do not know what the concept is supposed to represent and are here just for quick profits.
NFTs are similar to other crypto assets: some gamers will buy in-game items and hold them for speculative reasons. If many players do this, it may potentially cause a crash in the industry. Furthermore, it may even affect the NFT gaming sector as a whole in the end.
Even with the aforementioned limitations, NFT implementation in the gaming industry is certainly a growing trend. More than $2.5 billion worth of investments have been poured into blockchain games during the first quarter of 2022 alone. Gaming giants Square Enix, Ubisoft, SEGA, Bandai Namco, EA, Zynga, and others are actively investing and working to spur mainstream blockchain gaming adoption, and battle-scarred industry pros have also been moving into blockchain, etc., etc.
The industry has never been more alive. Gaming DApps are becoming increasingly more successful, which will further boost the development of the NFT market’s infrastructure, as well as promote more innovative solutions for the industry.