What games utilizing NFTs are not doing but they should!
NFTs, or Non Fungible Tokens is a fancy term for unique digital assets with true ownership. You can read my short text on here if you want to learn more: What is an NFT.
Currently, the games utilizing NFTs have started to innovate the scene, some are doing it way better than others. One of the most interesting use cases of NFTs for a game is probably 22 racing series. The most interesting game using NFTs is likely Blankos. And then we have a bunch of up and coming Card games like Darkcountry and Gods unchained, an RPG like Hodlgod, as well as game influenced DEFI ecosystems like Alienworlds.
Why 22 racing series is interesting is because they are doing something the others are not, it’s a car game, where you own the car. The car is a bundle of NFTs that you can put together as you see fit. This is done by combining car parts, which is also NFTs. Once they are put together, you can pull them apart to create a different car. This means there can potentially be some very interesting and unique looking cars moving forward.
What do I believe they are missing?
These games are taking what has been done before, innovating on that, and presenting a new iteration of what we have seen before, but with true ownership. Which by itself is a huge upgrade from closed system gaming assets that we are used to see. However, we can’t stop here, we have to move forward.
Currently, the biggest benefit from the gaming NFTs are for speculators. They buy up stock, and hold it the hope of seeing those assets ascend in price for a good return. This is all healthy in an economy, as it helps provide liquidity and cashflow into the ecosystem. But as a gamer, I may be a bit biased here and wonder, what happened to the gaming aspects? With this new technology we can do much more. We can enable the gamers to generate more from the assets than speculators. Those that join the ecosystem for the gaming and community experience it brings.
We have this technology that enables the uniqueness of assets, but it’s currently being used in a static way. The only dynamic aspects of the current NFT games is the ability to upgrade them into a new asset, which some projects do better than others. However, once upgraded, they are static once again.
We have NFT asset standards that allow us to have dynamic data, which means our NFTs can be constantly evolving and enable gamers to create unique assets in an epic way.
So what do I mean when I say dynamic data?
The concept of something being dynamic is that it is flexible and can undergo a constant change. Going from one static state to another static state is great (Like combining NFTs for an upgraded NFT), but it’s not creating dynamic and ever evolving items. Something only a gamer could achieve by putting in time and actually playing the game.
In multiple of our NFT standards we have two sets of data, immutable and mutable. Immutable data can not be changed or manipulated after it has been created. This data enables the unique and verifiable data of the NFTs. However we also have the aspect of mutable data in the same asset. Which means that new data can be written to an NFT without impacting the true nature of that NFT. This differentiation is very important and was introduced (to the best of my knowledge) in the Simpleassets standard way back in February 2019. And has since been applied in multiple other NFT standards since then.
Essentially this allow us to add data such as experience points, score and levels to the assets, just to mention a few. This means, if our in game Sword has a base damage of 10, with the mutable data this tool could gain experience points and level up to essentially add a multiplier to that base damage. Let’s say that sword has been used to defeat 100 enemies and by that it gains +10% damage.
To make it even more interesting, let’s take that same item, defeat a boss, and by defeating that Boss with that asset, it now gets unique data added to it to showcase this. Perhaps this boss is very difficult and by doing that the Sword gain a frost bite which slows down enemies.
Since this data is on the asset, each asset can be leveled in different ways and create totally unique assets in a dynamic and very exciting way. The more you play the game, the more you learn, the cooler and more powerful swag you will be able to have. Or perhaps you want to trade that asset for a new asset with another gamer.
This also enables your character to have the same structure and use the mutable data of the NFT for your levels, spells, boosters and so forth.
NFTs are here to change the gaming industry to the better.
I am a long time gamer, I have played many thousands of hours of games. So this topic gets me very excited. There are many ideas, innovations and improvements to be done in the ecosystems. Creating truly unique game items that the user fully owns, which also benefits the gamer more than the speculator… This IS exciting!
One of the best blockchains for this use case is WAX, resources are cheap, you can create hundreds of NFTs for $1, you don’t pay per action/transaction and it’s fast. The community is big enough to launch games and get a group of beta testers engaged with your product and help evolve it. The NFT marketplaces are the most active ones in terms of users of all blockchains, and they have the cloud wallet. Cloud wallet is the most user friendly and easy to use account system I’ve seen so far in the blockchain space. Which enables anyone to sign up and get started for free, in about a minute.
If you have a game project that are looking at NFTs and how you can utilize them best, don’t hesitate to reach out to me. I’d love to sit down and help you figure out how to make it happen.
Let’s get together and evolve this ecosystem!
Anyobservation
