In a world where everything is mass-produced, the idea of owning something truly unique has, with time, become more and more compelling for a lot of people. 

Never has it been more obvious how vast, and how populous, the world truly is: each one of us is only one of almost eight billion people, and eight billion is a number that’s just incomprehensibly big. 

Everyone is drawn towards collectibles, but to have something truly unique is rare, and has a magic to it: the act of possessing something unique is itself differentiating. 

What Are NFTs

In order to understand NFTs, there are a couple of underlying concepts that need to be detailed:

  • Fungibility;
  • Blockchains; and
  • Cryptocurrency.

The first is ‘fungibility’. ‘Fungibility’ refers to the idea of an item being replaceable: a fungible item is one that is not unique. NFTs stands for non-fungible tokens, and so to understand fungibility is to understand non-fungible tokens: if fungible tokens are replaceable tokens, then non-fungible tokens are irreplaceable; unique; unquestionably yours, in the sense that they are owned by nobody else in the world.

A blockchain is like a book in which the information is written: a list of records, tracking who owns what. The benefit of a blockchain is that it’s decentralized, meaning that everyone whose name is written in the book has access to said book. If some nefarious actor tried to modify the details written therein? The rest of the interested parties would not allow it.

Now, NFTs are purchased by ‘cryptocurrency’, and ‘cryptocurrency’ has become a bit of a buzzword now – it’s all the rage amongst the tech-literate, and they’re especially fond of referring to it as ‘crypto’ – but, fundamentally, the term ‘cryptocurrency’, or ‘crypto’, merely denotes a decentralisation which, if you recall, simply denotes that there is a sense in which information about the thing is publicly shared, which protects your interests, because secrecy facilitates scams.

Anyone can own NFTs; no-one can own yours, unless you choose to sell them. Selling NFTs  is its own can of worms – but its where some of the controversy around NFTs arises: people often buy NFTs with the hope that they’ll go up in value in order to resell them.

Still, economically-speaking, buying – and then selling – NFTs can be profitable, as with any form of trading. Furthermore, as a form of trading, it can feel less abstract than stocks and bonds, and therefore can feel more fun: what’s being traded is visible; it’s pictorial; you can show it to someone. It can feel more tangible. You can see the thing that is, potentially, begetting financial rewards. It also connects you to the creators in an extremely personal way.

As Mark Cuban said, “they can be thought of as “a new way for creators to monetize their work and connect directly with their fans.”

What Are NFTs In Gaming

No matter what type of game you’re playing, there’s always a feeling of ownership there. For example, let’s say you play Pokémon: there’s a feeling you can’t quite erase that you OWN these creatures; that these creatures are YOURS. You found them; you trained them; you raised them. Therefore? You own them.

And you’d be right, in some limited sense: sure, the Pikachu on the screen IS your Pikachu – there is a sense in which you do have ownership of it – but very little differentiates it from other people’s Pikachus. 

Even if it’s got great EVs, other people can still EV train their Pikachu; even if it’s shiny, other people can still head out and catch that same shiny, should they find it; should they, by some other means, replicate it, you would have no protections in place. 

That is to say, even if one can be said to own an in-game asset by virtue of owning said game, in some limited sense, there’s some ineffable feeling of unrest – of not feeling special – that accompanies the recognition that everyone else could, if they wanted, own exactly the same thing: the same feeling of alienation that is sometimes produced by the mass-production of products under capitalism; the rewards we receive for our efforts are equivalent to everyone else’s.

Hence, how captivating, from an emotional perspective, people find games that feature NFTs to be: what an innovation, emotionally-speaking, they are. So, what are NFTs in gaming? They are games that are utilizing NFTs in order to further your emotional investment. NFTs and gaming do both also tend to attract a more young, tech-literate generation, so, in that sense, the target-audience can be considered to have some overlap.

Now, ‘tokenization’ refers to turning assets into NFTs, and this is the means by which more games could start to capitalize on the NFT craze: by tokenizing in-game assets, and having collectibles be NFTs, companies can start to control the sale and resale of said items, and make profit thusly.

For example, Jagex – the founders of RuneScape – have often tried to police people selling their RuneScape accounts. There is the capacity for tokenization there – each account could be made into an NFT that is buyable and sellable on a marketplace, with the unique identifier from account-to-account being the name – and, should Jagex choose to take that route, there’s a non-zero chance that it would be profitable for them.

Let us now look at a case study of a company that already utilises NFTS called Axie Infinity.

Axie Infinity

Axie Infinity is a game that was released in 2018, and is inspired by Pokémon. In Pokémon, you collect Pokémon; in Axie Infinity, you collect ‘Axies’, which are economically-designed creatures, and that economy in their design is beautiful to behold. 

In both, your creatures are your collectibles. So far, so simple. The USP (unique selling point) of Axie Infinity, though, is that those aforementioned Axies – or the eggs out of which they hatch – are purchasable through cryptocurrency: the eggs and the Axies are the NFTs.

So, it isn’t just a collection game: for players, it represents a platform to buy and sell tokenized in-game assets and, potential financial rewards aside, the emotional effect that this can have has been touched upon by this author above.

The integration of NFTs in-game – the tokenization of Axie Infinity’s in-game assets – is a compelling innovation, and this has paid off for the developers, Sky Mavis: according to Priori Data, “it had, at its peak, 2.8 million daily users.”

Still, with the preponderance of controversies around NFTs at this time, it becomes obvious that one must be careful: to carefully research each game that allows you to own in-game assets as NFTs in order to assess its trustworthiness. This is the same with any system by which you can risk money for the sake of a potential payout, and different people have different strengths.

Betting component 

People that consider themselves traders – or, as we’ve seen, gamers – might gravitate towards NFTs. Someone more mathematically-minded might gravitate towards stocks and bonds, but these can, for other people, feel somewhat abstractified: like there isn’t a real, tangible thing that is being traded.

Furthermore, trying to predict how today’s economy will move can, sometimes, feel futile. However, betting – on sports, for example – can scratch that tangibility itch, and can, from a competency perspective, be seen as a way to prove one’s knowledge of a medium – a sport; a show; a video game – where the outcome can be pretty binary: your team wins, or they lose.

You get paid, or you don’t. The win-condition is simple to understand and when watching a sport on which you have bet, for example, there is a real emotional investment that comes with watching how the game plays out: attempting to assess, as the game goes on, how likely your bet is to pay off. The bookmaker that makes a bet with you, having calculated the odds, then pays out your winnings should you win on your bet. 

Bookmakers are very much analogous to companies that deal in NFTs: whilst you’re afforded some protections on the basis of the decentralized nature of cryptocurrency and blockchains, you still want to do careful research into your investments, and into the legitimacy of the companies or games into which you’re investing.

And the analogy is only strengthened by the fact that every trade does – no matter how intelligent the trader – represent making a bet: paying some money for something that might decrease in value. So, to better understand NFTs, we can do so by analogy with a good bookmaker:

There are a few things that you want to consider when choosing a bookie:

  • Reliable payouts i.e. a bookmaker that won’t run off with your money;
  • A bookmaker that doesn’t manipulate the odds in their favour too much; and
  • There being a sense of fun on the sites.

The best betting sites are those that adhere to these three bullet-points – plus whatever else might be on your own personal list – in such a way that gives you that same feeling buying an NFT that means something to you might: a sense of personal investment, and adrenaline at the same time. 

There are sites that have done everything for you so that you don’t have to worry about finding reliable bookies. Be assured that MightyTips selection of top bitcoin betting sites. In all their selections, the experts are guided by high ratings and the honesty of the bookmakers. Therefore, when choosing a Bookie you can be sure that MightyTips has only companies that are trustworthy in the field of crypto payments.

But, wherever you choose to risk your money for the sake of a potential payout – bookmakers, NFTs or trading – make sure you do so carefully, and don’t risk any more than you’re willing to lose!

The Current State NFTs And Gaming, And The Future

Clearly, NFTs and gaming go hand in hand, and the NFT business-model – and, more specifically, using the aforementioned business model of NFT in gaming and other virtual industries – is unlikely to die out any time soon: as Grimes said, “NFTs are the future of digital ownership and the beginning of a new era for art and culture.”

Who knows what amazing, NFT-based games are in development right now; how revolutionary their means of integration of NFTs might be?

The introduction of NFTs into digital gaming has been nothing short of revolutionary, giving gamers a way to add an even deeper sense of personalness to the digital gaming space, which already differentiates itself from other forms of media precisely by being so personal: so about your personal way of interacting with its virtual systems.

A lot of people who are involved in NFTs sometimes speak somewhat jargonistically which can feel, at times, artificial and impersonal. However, at its core, the success of NFTs boils down to the human need to feel different; to feel unique; to feel special. NFTs are, at their core, art, and the selling and reselling of art is recognized as being important: a sign of sophistication. 

Fundamentally, the difference merely boils down to the digitized nature of the art being sold, but that has the benefit of that artwork not being destructible; being immutable; being able to outlast the canvases upon which art was generally drawn. Combining NFTs with gaming has led to some amazingly emotionally profound experiences for gamers everywhere, and the future of NFT-based gaming is looking bright.