Games and NFTs – The Path Ahead

It’s hard to go a single day online without someone mentioning NFTs. A new tech company releases NFT avatars, and other virtual items, for video games seemingly every week.

Ubisoft recently got involved in NFTs, integrating them with one of its least popular games.

If you look at game companies that have combined cryptocurrency, NFTs and gaming, it’s hard to tell what the future of gaming holds. Are we going to transition from enjoying games to trying to sell each other virtual items?

It’s important to note that game NFTs are slightly different from your average microtransactions. Ownership of NFT skins bought in a game is connected to your online account for that specific game. The game developer ultimately has complete control over how DLC works and authenticates your ownership of all that content.

NFTs present a unique alternative. Hypothetically, rather than your Blizzard account data telling your COD (Call of Duty) account that you own a specific ghost skin, it would find out what you own by corresponding with an external blockchain.

If you wish to transfer that NFT skin to someone else, you can. Then, COD will be able to verify the new ownership of that skin.

NFT games are described as ‘play-to-earn’ because the NFTs you get while playing could be sold to other players for cryptocurrency, such as Bitcoin. This means that these items hold value in the real world.

Blockchain technology could potentially verify unique items in many different games.

This technology has made news in the PC and console gaming world and in the online casino gaming world, too. The blockchain has made it possible to play at crypto casinos with anonymity. If you prefer traditional gambling with the British pound, you can play UK’s favourite online casino here.

What are developers doing?

The primary reason to implement NFTs into the gaming industry is to attract players already aware of them and those that know cryptocurrency. Bringing in new customers is far more beneficial than not.

Let us look at how developers are implementing NFTs into the gaming industry.

Ubisoft is currently the only game’s developer to implement NFTs into one of their games. However, other gaming developers have shown recent interest in including them as well.

Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot has praised blockchain technology and said it ‘will imply more play-to-earn that will enable more players to earn content, own content, and we think it’s going to grow the industry quite a lot.’

Ubisoft’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint was released with NFTs integrated into the game. However, players showed signs of scepticism and even confusion.

Sony hasn’t yet invested any time into NFTs. Even so, plenty Spider-Man NFTs are circulating on the internet. Finally, Capcom hasn’t included NFTs in their games at this time. However, they did licence Street Fighter for an NFT card collection in 2021.

Final Thoughts

Much experimentation is going on with NFTs and mainstream gaming developers. As technology progresses and players discover the wonders of cryptocurrency and NFTs, who knows how far the path ahead will be for us.