The gaming industry is constantly evolving, and most people think of progress in terms of better graphics, visual fidelity and tech like VR. However, more structural changes happened in the last decade, aside from more advanced graphics cards and higher resolution.
The emergence of eSports changed the perception of gaming and created professional players and leagues. Thousands of gamers now make a living from CS: GO, League of Legends, and Call of Duty.
Another prevailing trend is free AAA games. For example, Fortnite, COD Warzone, or PUBG are free to play games that generate incredible revenue due to in-game purchases.
The blockchain technology behind cryptocurrencies and the NFT phenomenon is slowly becoming the next big thing. As a result, there is a potential for disrupting the industry.
What about iGaming?
Online casino websites have many thousands of games in their libraries and follow the footsteps of other gaming sectors. Online casino NetBet is an example of a site with live interactions, games with high-end graphics and other advanced features. In addition, some iGaming companies already accept blockchain tech in the form of crypto coin payments.
How is blockchain changing the world?
The CEO of Twitter sold his first tweet for $2.9 million. It was an event that sparked the popularity of NFT, which stands for non-fungible token. NFTs works on Ethereum blockchain technology and enables ownership of digital goods. Theoretically, any item or character design within the game can become NFT.
Gaming studio giant Ubisoft introduced a limited edition of NFTs in their Ghost Recon Breakpoint. Unfortunately, instead of huge sales, the attempt was a flop. The game didn’t integrate blockchain-driven NFT the right way, and players didn’t embrace its use.
Only in 2021 NFTs connected with gaming drive $4.8 billion in revenue. Two games utilizing in-game tokens and digital real estate are The Sandbox and Axie Infinity. The SAND token reached a market capitalization of around $5 billion, while Axie Infinity earned on its in-game NFT item or tokens $2.3 billion.
Microtransactions and assets
While some are trying to implement blockchain tech in games, the most prominent players like Epic Games and Activision still have huge revenue with traditional in-game purchases and are not considering NFTs.
With NFT becoming an essential factor in gaming, new models like play to earn emerge. The idea is to play to gain digital game assets that have out of the game value stored on the blockchain. The concept of GameFi proposes that you shouldn’t just buy content, but try to invest in assets that have markets outside the game world.
In-game NFT becomes a currency with real-world value. Another venue where blockchain and NFT are interacting with gaming and virtual worlds is metaverse, a name that doesn’t have a clear explanation yet. However, an interconnected virtual 3D world already sells houses, estates, cars, clothes and other digital assets.
The main issue with earning NFTs or buying digital assets is avoiding pay to win. No matter how innovative blockchain implementation in-game could be, the game won’t last long if a new player can buy its way to victory.
