Cryptocurrency caused a lot of buzz around 2017 as the value of Bitcoin reached an all-time high. With this increase in value, people who had never heard of cryptocurrency became interested and began exploring its potential. At the same time, various industries started experimenting with blockchain technology, after realising its value. Soon enough, new use cases of blockchain emeged—to track supply chains, ensure product safety, prevent counterfeiting, and improve data accuracy.
As blockchain technology matures, new and innovative ways to use it are born. One of the most interesting is in the form of decentralised games. These games, which often use Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), create a digital world that exists on top of the blockchain, one that players can interact with and earn rewards. While there are many different types of decentralised games, they all share a few similar characteristics. Read along to find out what metaverse is and how it encompasses Play-to-Earn and NFT Games.
Understanding Metaverse
The metaverse is a concept that refers to virtual worlds that have been enhanced with augmented reality, artificial intelligence, social interactivity, cryptocurrencies, and many other breakthroughs. The metaverse results from a confluence of technologies, including immersive augmented reality (AR), machine learning (ML), artificial intelligence, VR, and blockchain.
Being in the metaverse is similar to being in the physical world because people can do more than peruse the information or engage on the internet. One feature that distinguishes the metaverse from the internet is placing the user in the middle of the action. Metaverse has unravelled some new concepts, such as the creator economy, where users are getting paid for the content they create or consume.
Think about getting paid for playing games; sounds funny, but it’s true. Metaverse makes it possible to incentivise both the developer of the game and the player of that game. Not that long ago, people were shuffling blocks in candy crush, and now when you know you can get paid for playing games, the subscribers of metaverse will be substantial.
How Do Play-to-Earn Games Work?
The play-to-earn game model underpins the feature of decentralisation of the economy. The model incentivises users who add value to the gaming ecosystem by participating and spending time. With the emergence of a play-to-earn gaming ecosystem, that perception of games being merely a source of fun is changing. Top-rated play-to-earn games Axie Infinity, Illuvium, and Star Atlas, are fun to play and viable investments.
Gaming production houses like EPIC and Roblox have raked up their presence in the P2E gaming ecosystem. The most prominent venture capital firms have recently poured money into the investment business. In 2019, the global gaming industry spent up to $9.6 billion, with $476 million invested in 24 blockchain-based gaming startups in the first half of 2021 alone.
Play-to-Earn games aim to be the barrier-breaking point between gamers and metaverse. Given an opportunity to earn from games will be like an open invitation to game enthusiasts. As the Axie-Infinity case study states, people want a sustainable outcome from games. Game production houses realise the aspiration of the gaming community and are vesting hugely into the Play-to-Earn space.
The addition of Non-Fungible-Token (NFT) has taken the Play-to-Earn gaming experience to another level. NFTs are valuable assets that allow the purchaser to claim ownership of the original file of a digital asset. Read along to understand better what NFT is and how it works.
What Are Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs)?
NFT gives you ownership of a digital file the same way as you might claim ownership of the master file of a sound or music recording you made. These whimsical works of art conceal distinctive and non-exchangeable data stored in a database using blockchain technology to provide proof of ownership. Primarily, it employs the same technology as cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and Ethereum to ensure the distinctiveness of each NFT and assert who owns it.
However, unlike a Bitcoin unit, each NFT is unique and cannot be exchanged right away. As a result, NFTs have become collectible digital assets with a value in the same way that physical art does. Any digital file can be easily minted and saved as an NFT, such as photography, art, music, or video files. Now, tweets and even popular memes have been reproduced as NFTs.
The operability and scalability of NFTs expand as soon as they are included in the Play-to-Earn ecosystem. Think about playing Call of Duty and having a unique gun that can vest 100x damage. On top of it, you can sell this gun in the game or externally for real-life value. Now that will surely interest any gamer.
Metaverse NFT games like Illuvium and Star Atlas have embedded valuable NFT items within the game. In Illuvium, there are Illuvial, which are monsters that you have to catch but at the same time are precious NFT assets. Each item you use in the Star Atlas game is an NFT verified on the blockchain. You can extract it and sell it on the marketplace within the game or choose to sell it on an external NFT marketplace.
In a Nutshell
Metaverse is an opportunity that everyone can leverage. It is a truly decentralised ecosystem that aims to cater to every user. The metaverse is a portal to a brand new generation of adaptive, more realistic, and highly engaging internet. Moreover, the metaverse promises a seamless virtual reality experience. With the addition of metaverse gaming, the ecosystem shows the potential to grow tremendously.
The Play-to-Earn gaming model is already a massive thing, even being a two or three-year-old concept. Add NFT games to this ecosystem, and you have got a more extensive reach and more active participation of gamers willing to invest their time and resources in return for incentives. As the metaverse will grow, so will the Play-to-Earn gaming space and NFT games, resulting in a genuinely decentralised content-creator economy.