Yeah, it’s time we talked about NFT a bit more seriously, as many major gaming companies like Epic Games and Ubisoft have vowed to incorporate blockchain technology into future games. The one question on all gamers’ minds is, will this new blockchain technology ruin AAA gaming?
Everyone has heard about NFT’s, the non-fungible tokens that lives on the blockchain, and it’s a one-of-a-kind digital asset that belongs to you and you alone. Well, that’s the gist of it anyways. And like all new things, there are those that are bad and there are those that a good. Bad ones being the bored apes and good ones are yet to be defined! What we as gamers gotta look out for is the bad use case of NFT, such as having to buy into the tech in order to participate in the game. Or perhaps taking resources away from the development of a beloved franchise to add NFTs, dragging the quality down in the process. And so far, from what I saw, most of it ain’t looking too good!
So how could a company have NFT in their games, without dragging the experience through the mud? Without creating a pyramid scheme that punishes the little guys? Well, if items in the microtransaction are replaced by NFT, that would be a big problem. Adding scarcity to things that never knew scarcity before is a scummy move. However, creating a few unique items that can live alongside other items of infinite numbers might work. And that a big “might”! Most free-to-play games survive off of whales’ backs, and thus it would be whales who would enjoy the privilege of owning these NFT. Then they would have a rental system to let the “little guys” use the item for a brief moment while making money from it. It sounds bad (it is), but hey without the whales, most of us would even have free to play games so I’m willing to overlook this aspect if it doesn’t hinder the game’s quality.
Of course, how do you get gamers willingly enough to even purchase the token needed to participate? Axie Infinity is often used as an example of a “successful” blockchain game, but to participate in that game, you’d have to fork over at least 200$ to be able to fully maximize your time in the game. A steep cost for any gamer.
I’ve kinda come up with an idea, not the greatest but nevertheless should work, and that’s tieing the game’s cost with buying the token! So let’s say you buy the game for 70$, in the box, you get 70 tokens that you could use in the game to get started. With staking functionality, you could in theory earn while playing, and if you’d like, with every microtransaction you pay, you get an additional token to get the NFT stuff! Yeah, it’s not the prettiest thing but unless the gaming community pushes back heavily, this might be the outcome.
As I’ve touched on, unless you can take the items you’ve bought in one game to another game, I don’t really see a future for it. I made a video looking at it from an optimistic point of view but devoid of all realism to be fair. The whole point of NFT is that it’s decentralized, by locking an NFT in one game, centralizing it, for example, it completely defeats the purpose of even owning one! Anyways, let me know what you guys think. For me, NFT in gaming will ruin gaming as a whole, especially AAA gaming if left unchecked.
