You must have heard of NFTs and play-to-earn gaming all over the internet. If you’re wondering how NFT games work, you’ve come to the right place. NFT games incorporate NFTs and allow gamers to earn from gameplay. Want to know more about how NFT games work? Keep reading to find out.
What is NFT in Gaming?
NFT games include NFTs in their format one way or the other. These games require you, the player, to have NFT interactions, purchase avatars and weapons that are NFTs, and allow you to generate income in many cases.
A highlight of NFT games is that they generate a finite number of tokens you can exchange with the NFTs on the blockchain where the game is hosted. So gamers will have true ownership of tokens—they can create, swap, and use these NFTs in games. The game developers frame rules and use smart contracts to establish these on the blockchain.
How do NFT Games Work?
At the most basic level, NFT games let users earn money while giving them a great gaming experience. NFT games blend gaming and finance, also known as GameFi. The home blockchain hosts NFTs, which are unique digital collectibles. Gamers can sell or exchange these NFTs with other players or collectors.
Besides, some games let gamers earn NFTs, promoting more people to invest in these promising NFTs.
There are rules governing the use of NFTs in these games laid down and implemented through smart contracts. For instance, CryptoKitties is a famous game that uses smart contracts to hold its structure together. Its gene science contract decides the mechanics that give birth to new cats.
What is Play-To-Earn NFT Game?
Play-to-earn NFT games are those which allow users to earn through gaming. Mostly, players get rewarded in the form of tokens or NFTs based on their progress in the game. Some games require gamers to own these tokens to advance to higher levels. Tokens are used as the most common form of reward, while NFTs drops are less frequent.
Axie Infinity is one of the most popular play-to-earn NFT games. To get started, you need an initial investment. But once you start playing, you can earn Smooth Love Potion (SLP), the native token, which can be traded on crypto exchanges.
Play-to-earn games are popular in low-income nations as an alternative income. In the Philippines, gamers use the SLP token for breeding new avatars in the game Axie infinity. If these are popular, the NFT can fetch a high value. Many people in the Philippines depend on this game for their livelihood.
What is In-game NFT?
In-game NFTs offer yet another way to earn income from NFT games. Instead of gaining tokens like SLP in Axie Infinity, you can earn actual NFT as collectibles. NFTs can be anything from weapons, avatars, cosmetics, or a utility within a game. A great example is the NFT game CryptoKitties where you can breed new breeds of cats and trade them. As a player, you gain ownership over your in-game NFTs.
Can I lose money playing NFT games?
Volatility is part and parcel of NFTs. So yes, you can lose money when playing NFT games. For instance, NFTs in Axie Infinity sold for $340 during its peak but dropped to $6 by July 2022.
The best way to approach NFT games is like another crypto asset; there is no guarantee you’ll earn anything. So spend only what you can afford to lose.
Can I lose my NFTs?
You cannot expect NFTs to come with multiple layers of protection; ensuring their safety is the owner’s duty. Blockchain might be great for recording transactions, but they’re not an ideal storage place for large digital files. So NFTs never live on the blockchain, but their smart contracts do. And the digital file is stored using different methods.
Some services use web addresses to secure NFTs, but these can potentially vanish from the internet and make the NFTs disappear. This can happen if you don’t renew the domain registration.
Popular NFT games
Axie Infinity is one of the most popular NFT games, which draws inspiration from the Pokémon series. Built on the Ethereum blockchain, this game contains NFT avatars called Axies, which you can buy and use to battle other players.
CrypoKitties is one of the first blockchain games built on the Ethereum blockchain. It allows players to breed new cats and trade them too.
Conclusion
Now that you know how do NFT games work you can appreciate and take advantage of its immense possibilities. NFT games have made gaming more exciting by introducing collectibles and letting players interact through their NFTs. Gamers worldwide have found a great way to monetize their love for gaming, with some of them making it their steady income source. All things said we could see more and more games incorporating NFTs into their existing setups. NFT games are here to stay.
Frequently Asked Questions
NFT games make money mainly through the following methods:
Transaction fee
When you sign up to play an NFT game via a crypto gaming platform, you have to pay a transaction fee to buy the digital currency used in the game. The digital currency is also called the native token. The transaction fee is the primary income source of the NFT games. When more gamers buy the native token, its value rises, benefiting the game developers and the players.
In-game assets
NFT games have in-game accessories like weapons, avatars, armor, cosmetics, or other utilities. These items help gamers play better. When these items are included as NFTs in the games, players can trade them to gain profits. All these transactions will be recorded on the blockchain, and a small fee will go to the developers on every transaction. So in-game assets could offer a secondary source of income for the developers, while players can also earn a small profit on the trades.
Axie Infinity is one of the most popular NFT games and the most profitable. In this game, you can win battles to earn tokens and trade them for money if you wish to.
Gods Unchained is an NFT game that is free to play. It comes under the card trading genre with NFT elements included in it.
