The volatile nature of NFTs turns some people away, but the market seems to naturally give way to gaming. Gaming NFTs may introduce an entire new asset class–and not to mention may pull new Gen Z and millennial users to the NFT space.
The Many Different Types of NFT Games
Most NFT games earn money from players by charging for entry. Typically, the first payment to an NFT game would be something like a starter pack. NFT games also take a percentage of the items that are traded in-game. The notion of “game-ifying” NFTs is not new–and the industry already features successful ventures in gaming.
Axie Infinity is considered the most successful NFT game. It has 3 million players and its in-game items are valued at $2.26 billion, according to NFT game tracker Dappradar. Its model is similar to Pokemon–the game lets its players collect, trade, breed, and battle digital monsters. Players earn currency by trading them and interestingly, for a time, some players were able to earn more than some countries’ minimum wage.
Other NFT games are more like trading baseball cards. Collecting cards and trading them with other players is the main basis of the game. Typically, the in-game purchases are randomized “packs” that contain new cards.
Another type of game-ified NFT is the real estate trading game. Such games allow players to buy up plots of land inside a private metaverse. There is even an NFT game that trades real-life properties with real-world addresses in an Earth-like metaverse.
World of Defish Combines Trading and Real Estate
A new game called World of Defish combines the trading-card game type with the real-estate type. WoD is an NFT fishing game. A first look at their website shows that the art for their fish illustrations is colorful and polished. Even the illustration of the game’s native coin $WOD has an artistic depth and evokes quality.
The game features NFT fish that can be caught by players. The caught fish can be subsequently used as bait to lure higher-ranking fish. The catches can be staked for passive income, or players can collect them and even sell them on the marketplace.
World of Defish features a large map where players are able to fish in different areas. The areas of maritime territory can be bought and sold on the marketplace. The territory owners have the potential to earn income from fish caught by other players in that particular territory. It also features a ranking system that allows players to compete with each other.
The game also features a crafting mechanism that allows players to invest time instead of money into the game, allowing a lower-cost-entry alternative than constantly buying in-game items. There’s also a community and guild system that enables players to form alliances. The game has boxes that have four items of random quality–much like the Loot Box format featured in other games, such as Rocket League. The game ‘s economy centers on a new token that was listed on Pancake Finance in December of 2021.
It doesn’t appear that World of Defish is a rug pull or a scam because the user experience appears to be solid and there’s a genuine emphasis on fostering a community.
Chess.com’s TreasureChess Spinoff
TreasureChess is part of the famous chess platform, Chess.com. Treasure Chess is a derivative experimental NFT marketplace. It’s an interesting endeavor where players creators and collectors can create, trade, buy, and sell NFTs made from their chess.com games.
In a Chess.com announcement, they make it clear that this is an opt-in program. No one will be able to sell an NFT with anyone else’s username or avatar. Chess.com will make no money on this endeavor, and interestingly enough, most of the proceeds go to the Creator Fund.
These NFTs have a royalties structure to support their creators. The website says “the core mission of the project is to build features to make your chess experience richer.” In the blog post, they mention they are offsetting the environmental cost of these NFTs and claim that the collectibles in their marketplace use “less energy than sending an email”.
Minting Chess Games and NFTs on Chess.com
How does it work? A player can mint any of the games they play on chess.com. The games exist as an NFT in the form of a “game card”, containing a gif of the reproduction of the game. Based on how the game played out, there are different tiers of game cards. The different levels of the Treasures are Good, Great, Ultra and Mythic. Right now there are over 40 different achievements that players can collect. Chess.com is offering the first three Treasures players no-cost mints.
The question remains if NFTs are the future of gaming. Many debate that the very nature of Fortnite skins are akin to NFTs, and the idea of in-game currency, loot box trading, and similar gaming features have been toeing the line of NFTs for a long time.
Some companies aren’t open to NFTs at all. In a recent statement, Blizzard said that they are not interested in getting into NFTs. Game publisher Ubisoft has collaborated with a platform meant to facilitate NFTs within the company’s games–a huge step for gaming in the Web3 world.
You can read more about Chess.com here, and World of Defish here.
