The NFT market is growing faster and more efficient every day. Third-generation, innovative blockchain platforms are now available to enable the blockchain gaming industry to fully leverage the potential of NFTs.
The current NFT market capitalization has reached $63 billion. Many NFTs, as well as collectible tokens, are experiencing steady price growth. Decentraland (MANA), Gala (GALA), The Sandbox (SAND), and several other blockchain games have already set the foundation for the much-hyped “metaverse,” giving users a sneak peek of what the future holds for them.
NFTs were around for some time, but they gained mainstream attention in 2020-2021 due to the incredible auction results. NFTs were sold for millions, and both consumers and service providers began to see the full potential of NFTs. The NFT ecosystem saw a surge in promising projects and new services by 2021. Tron, Ardor, and Tron are also prominent blockchain platforms that have launched their NFT games.
Polygon, the Ethereum layer-2 protocol, is the latest platform that has joined this list. Polygon Studios, which was recently established by the company has joined the NFT market as part of the ongoing effort to connect the Web2 world and Web3 worlds. The new division will be devoted exclusively to blockchain gaming and NFTs. The platform has also invested in Colexion, Asia’s biggest NFTs marketplace, and has announced to finance 50% of all ongoing product development costs for GameOn Entertainment, a prominent game development studio.
This all points to one point: The NFT ecosystem is now in the major leagues. We will soon see other players combining NFTs and traditional video games. The blockchain gaming sector is one of the fastest-growing sectors within the ecosystem.
NFT gaming has been disrupted by offering players full ownership over in-game assets and play-to earn, free-to win NFT games. NFT gaming is booming. Some of these games have industry backing and could revolutionize the game. These are some NFT- and blockchain gaming projects you need to keep an eye on as we move into 2022.
NFTs are a way to redefine in-game asset ownership
Many blockchains can support NFTs, but Ardor is the only one that offers native support. Many platforms do not know the amount of NFTs that are created and traded. Most activities are managed by smart contracts which are developed by third parties. Although these smart contracts get the work done, relying on third-party developers leads to security risks, added costs, and centralization – all of which are problems for both the service providers and the consumers.
This is addressed with the Ardor Blockchain, which features natively supporting NFT tokens. Ardor was developed by Jelurida in Switzerland and features a unique parent-child blockchain architecture, a multichain PoS consensus mechanism, rich customization options, as well as a multichain Proof-of-Stake (PoS), consensus mechanism.
One game leveraging Ardor’s features (alongside Polygon’s infrastructure) is Mythical Beings, a card game that has gained substantial traction amongst players over the last couple of months. You can play this free-to–play and easy-to earn game to buy, trade, craft, or collect cards. The NFTs are individual tokens that represent each card or character. Value is determined by how rare the card is.
The Polygon Bridge is used by this Ardor-based game to connect its NFT collection on OpenSea. This marketplace has the highest interoperability, allowing for maximum interoperability, and allowing users to access secondary markets on Ethereum and other EVM compatible chains. Mythical Beings is able to offer both the Ardor and Polygon network benefits to its players.
Xaya is currently developing a new NFT game. This platform, which was founded in 2014 and known for Huntercoin (the first ever blockchain-based game), is the oldest. Autonomous Worlds is developing an on-chain version for the popular Soccer Manager Elite game. Soccer Manager Elite is an online, community-driven multiplayer game of soccer management. The game is built on Xaya’s open-source blockchain gaming platform, giving players complete ownership of their in-game assets in the form of NFTs.
SYN CITY, another blockchain-based game is due to launch soon. This on-chain version of the mafia-syndicate-themed gameplay will be 100% free-to-play, play-to-earn. SYN CITY is a gaming industry veteran from Disney Amber, Ubisoft Roblox, EA, Roblox and EA, along with tech giants Google, Tron Yahoo, Twitter.
Backed by Twitch co-founder Justin Kan and Zynga China’s co-founder Robin Chan’s Goat Capital, SYN CITY recently raised $8 million from its investment round to develop innovative features and in-game products for its community. In addition to introducing the Mafia As a DAO (MaaD) governance mechanism, SYN CITY will allow for transactions and automated decisions. Users can be sure that the gameplay and rewards offered by this platform will remain transparent and fair, thanks to this mechanism.
Splinterlands, a fantastic blockchain game everyone must check out is the final. Splinterlands is a play-to earn game that has dominated blockchain gaming. Splinterlands, formerly known as Steem Monsters and Tournaments, allows players to get rewards through in-game achievements.
Splinterlands has been the most popular game in four consecutive months. With 670,000 active wallets, the number of transactions on the platform now stands at 670,000. The platform’s total transaction volume has risen to close to $400,000. Now, the platform hosts Chaos Legion’s release and packs sale in three phases. One million packs of cards have been sold already during the Presale, which was an incredible success.
The next blockchain boom is certain to be caused by the increasing adoption of NFTs as more game developers integrate tokenization in their games. NFTs have a strong future and will continue to dominate the market. NFTs can help gamers get more value from their time as well as generate passive income. It may be worth your while to join the blockchain gaming revolution into 2022.