The crypto community is fond of trends, and the latest rolling is blockchain-based games.
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A close look at the chart of various gaming tokens will tell you that the gaming tokens are still riding the wave when even major cryptocurrencies are forming red candles. Their market cap is nearly $9.6 billion with a 24-hr trading volume of $4.31 billion — an exceptional feat to achieve in the current, slow crypto market.
Here is why blockchain and gaming make a perfect combination that is poised to grow despite the market burnout and take a look at some platforms that are already using blockchain to their advantage.
Blockchain and gaming
The most common (read popular) application to come out of the blockchain is cryptocurrency. Since currencies built using the tech are recorded on an open, distributed ledger, they can’t be counterfeited or double-spent.
In the gaming industry, blockchain tech has the potential to turn the tables on the monopolistic console market, make games more immersive, create a multiverse, and become the norm for player experience, in-gaming transactions, and the back-end infrastructure of the games.
Currently, there are 2 kinds of gaming platforms on blockchains: decentralized and hybrid. While hybrid games run on a central server whose assets are traded on a blockchain, decentralized games are the ones that run completely on the blockchain.
In both models, blockchain takes in-gaming assets and makes them ownable while creating a legitimate and permanent value of those assets. Regulation is another major problem faced by the gaming industry.
For example, New York — which has one of the strictest gaming policies — makes it difficult for players to access several gaming platforms. But, blockchains are self-regulated, which means anyone (including New Yorkers) from any part of the world can participate in blockchain-based games.
3 examples of blockchain-based gaming platforms
In addition to creating a scarcity of in-game items and incentivizing more purchases, blockchains also eliminate the fraudulent items in a game.
That said, blockchains have become more than just a tool for the gaming industry; it has become a market unto itself with a lot of platforms actively creating high-end gaming experiences. Let’s look at some of these games.
1. CryptoKitties
A crypto-collectible game on Ethereum, Cryptokitties is probably one of the most notable applications of blockchain technology in the gaming space. Though the game was developed in 2017 and had observed some success right after the launch, it recently got under the limelight with its unique cats represented as non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
The scope of the gameplay is to buy cats and auction them for trading and breeding. Cryptokitties has gotten so popular that it is responsible for one of the biggest sales of a collectible character called Dragon, which was sold for 600 ETH.
As of writing, the game has made $271,177 in sales in the last month from selling over 7,310 different in-gaming items.
2. My DeFi Pet
Developed by Kardiachain in coordination with TopeBox — a top game developer of Vietnam, My DeFi Pet is an NFT collectible game that combines the traditional gaming architecture with advanced blockchain technology.
Like Cryptokitties, it also involves breeding, evolving, and the battle mechanism of its pets. These pets can be collected by purchasing eggs using in-game currency, winning them through a bidding process, or breeding them for offspring.
Players can actually own these collectibles and use them for different decentralized finance (DeFi) applications, including staking, trading yielding/farming, or trading.
Despite being the latest entry to the blockchain gaming space, My DeFi Pet has a market cap of $56,457,717. with a 24-hr trading volume of $8,927,100.
Over 145,583 players are currently playing the game who have hatched about 1,726,229 eggs worth approximately $46.6 million.
3. Axie Infinity
Axie Infinity is a Pokemon-inspired blockchain-based game developed by a renowned technology-focused game studio, Sky Mavis. The game offers an immersive experience to gamers worldwide while enabling them to earn cryptocurrencies doing different gaming activities.
In recent times, Axie has become so popular that it is one of the top names among Ethereum-based gaming platforms by active users. Additionally, the game has generated more than 90,000 ETH on its marketplace and sold about 1,321,365 Axie’s to date.
Mass adoption
The conjunction of blockchains with games holds great promise for growth for both industries. Developers around the world are already leveraging the distributed technology to formulate a new genre of games that not only enhances the gaming experience for players but also allows them to create a new revenue stream.
In addition to My DeFi Pet, Cryptokitties, and Axie Infinity, platforms like Enjin and Decentraland are also taking big and ambitious steps into the realm of blockchain-based games. However, we are still in a very early stage and it remains to be seen whether these gaming platforms can actually ride the wave for mass adoption.
