The cryptocurrency market is currently valued more than $2 trillion. Combine it with the gaming industry that’s been growing since the release of Pong in 1972, and you get a synergy that’s going to change the way we game.
With the lockdowns in 2020, US gamers set a new spending record of $57 billion, 27% higher than in 2019. You can only imagine how big that amount would be if you also include the gaming market worldwide.
With the rise of NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, crypto gaming, NFT gaming or play-to-earn games, however you want to call it, is experiencing massive growth.
New studios dedicated to the development of and existing studios have announced intentions of launching their own NFT games and assets. And even celebrities and brands such as Snoop Dogg, the Walking Dead, and many more have jumped into the NFT craze.
That made me think about the opportunity to make some money, so I started looking into these NFT games and chose 5 games that I like and added to my watchlist.
The Sandbox
The Sandbox is a virtual world where players can build, own and monetize their gaming experience. Think about Minecraft and Roblox, but you TRULY own the assets you create in-game.
Pixowl, the game’s developer and publisher, developed the game to “disrupt existing game makers like Minecraft and Roblox by providing creators with true ownership of their creations as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and reward them for their participation in the ecosystem.”
Everything in their ecosystem is user-generated content. The Sandbox has three platforms that help gamers enjoy and earn within the game.
Voxel Editor allows users to create 3D models using pixel building blocks called Voxels. You can create different objects, humans, vehicles, tools and items, and then animate them to make it more engaging. Once created, you can export the model into The Sandbox marketplace so it becomes an NFT.
The NFT Marketplace lets users upload, publish and sell their NFT creations made from the Voxel Editor.
The Sandbox Game Maker allows users to create games without any coding experience thru easy-to-use visual scripting tools.
The game utilizes four tokens that interact with different types of users: SAND, LAND, ASSET & GAMES.
There are a lot that can be said about this game, but I’m not going to go over them.
There are 3 things that I really like about this game:
- The developers know what they’re doing. They’ve had massive success already on their two previous mobile games in the same franchise, and they have decided to integrate blockchain tech to the game. It does indeed disrupt the traditional gaming experience.
- It’s an open-world game. Players can literally create their own games inside and do whatever fun things they want to do. This is pretty much the element that made Minecraft and Roblox a success.
- There is a big support from big brands and different partnerships. Like I mentioned earlier, Snoop Dogg is in this game. Atari, The Walking Dead, Adidas and a partnership with Binance.
I have an account in Sandbox, but I haven’t really had the time to try it out. Currently, the game is in Alpha and they have prizes for those who play the game during this phase.
I am curious though on what I can do with this game in terms of investments, so right now I’m just exploring it. Aside from the usual selling of assets in the marketplace, I believe you can also use the LAND you own and rent it out to players, generating you income.
So for now, like I said, I’m exploring the game and learning more about it as time passes by.
Axie Infinity
Launched in 2018, Axie Infinity is a blockchain-based browser game developed by Sky Mavis, a Vietnam-based game developer.
Axie Infinity closely resembles Pokemon where you raise, breed and battle with NFT pets called Axies. In addition to that, you can hold virtual real estate inside the Axie Infinity world called “Lunacia” that consists of 90,601 plots of land.
Axies and land assets are unique NFTs and can be sold on their marketplace as well if you’re looking to make some income thru the game.
This game has been quite popular recently because of how it has been labeled as one of the most successful play-to-earn game. Axie Infinity was used to even replace lost income throughout the pandemic by some countries such as the Philippines, Portugal and Turkey, to name a few.
A recent news also broke out about a 27-year old who left his job at Goldman Sachs to add Axie Infinity as another stream of income for him.
The game uses two special cryptocurrencies:
- Axie Infinity Shards (AXS) – used as the main token to play the game.
- Small Love Potion (SLP) – tokens awarded to players for spending time in-game. You earn it by battling other Axies or finishing in-game quests.
There are 3 things I like about this game:
- There is a big player base. This game has been running for about 3 years now and their daily users keep on growing. This means that more players are investing in playing and breeding Axies.
- There’s a planned UGC element. Games nowadays need to be engaging in order to create a sustainable environment. And having a user-generated content ecosystem will be necessary to grow. Axie Infinity has plans to include that in their Lunacia SDK, a map editor where players can create their own games and experiences using Axie art assets.
- AXS Staking is available. I’m all about passive income and staking is one of the ways to generate passive income in cryptocurrency. I’m really happy that this option is available now for the game. That way, I can earn staking rewards while supporting the game’s ecosystem, even if I don’t decide to play it religiously.
Spider Tanks
Spider Tanks is a multiplayer battle arena game created by GAMEDIA and published in the Gala Games ecosystem.
It’s quite an exciting project because it’s a very esports-like game similar to League of Legends or Dota 2, where players compete against each other with characters.
But instead of focusing on fantasy characters, Spider Tanks utilize mechanized creepy-crawlers, which are customizable and are also NFT assets.
When I first saw this back September, I wasn’t exactly too excited for it since it felt like a generic MOBA with mechas. I can’t pinpoint it even to this day, but at that time, it lacked a certain element.
But with their recent announcement of the game’s play-to-earn mechanics, that got me to rethink about its potential. This is, after all, a blog dedicated to making, saving and investing money.
You earn rewards through 5 in-game roles:
- Pilot – Build your tanks and compete against other players and get rewards for winning.
- Captain – Collect tanks and have Pilots fight for you while you share the rewards.
- Fabricator – Create a factory that produces different tank components.
- Baron – Create your own maps/arena to get rewarded from the battles played in it.
- Emperor – Own an entire planet and get a cut from all battles that happen in it.
There are 3 things I like about this game:
- The developer has a good track record. GAMEDIA is a game development company based in the Netherlands. They’ve been around since 2007 and have created more than 100 games and have aided other developers in the creation of their games too.
- Promising play-to-earn mechanics. Different roles that help you earn rewards are quite interesting since it gives players flexibility on how to earn. You can still earn rewards no matter what your strategy for the game is.
- It’s an esports-like game. Esports is a big industry and if a game has this element to it, then the better. It gives the game a competitive edge because people can hold tournaments and compete for in-game or real world prizes. This was evidenced by their recent Seoul World Cup where different teams played in a tournament during Spider Tanks’ Closed Beta.
But one thing I’m a little concerned about though is the same thing that I’m excited about – the play-to-earn mechanics.
If players could earn rewards on 5 levels, how are those rewards distributed on all levels? And how will that be a sustainable model?
I haven’t found the answers yet since they just released the mechanics, but I’m sure it’s somewhere out there. And people might have raised that question too.
Star Atlas
Star Atlas is a grand strategy, open-world, space exploration MMORPG led by Michael Wagner, the CEO.
Players can explore the vast emptiness of space, pilot different ships, engage in commerce and production, and battle with other players for resources and glory.
Do you know what this game reminds me of?
Eve Online.
Now, instead of spending time online without any rewards, you can do so in Star Atlas while building your galactic empire.
The game runs on the Solana network, a network that is popular because of its fast transaction speeds and low fees. This is very important because the game will encounter multiple transactions in-game. Players will be mining, exploring worlds, paying taxes, and creating and trading assets.
You can earn rewards from different in-game roles:
- CEO
- Bounty Hunter
- Repair
- Freight
- Miner
- Managers
3 things I love about this project:
- It’s an MMORPG. This is more of a personal one. I love MMORPG games because it gives you some form of control on how you play and experience the game similar to open world games. You have specific roles that contribute to the overall theme of the game. And in Star Altas’ case, there are three factions with certain advantages: the Mud, the Oni and the Ustur.
- Scalability. Games like these are very massive in scope since it aims to create a realistic ecosystem that players have total influence on everything around them — from the assets they create to the missions they complete. Everything is connected to everything to some degree. And that gives this game limitless potential to scale up to whatever the game developers and community want.
- It runs on Solana. It is known that the Solana blockchain is a fast network capable of handling more than 50,000 transactions per second. Like I mentioned earlier, it is very important for a game like this to be built on a reliable network in order to keep the game running smoothly.
One big concern raised by some about Star Atlas though is its development. The game’s vision, mechanics and overall theme is great. But with a game this big, it could take years to actually finish it.
People are liking it to Star Citizen, a space exploration and combat simulation game, which has been in development since 2010. Star Citizen to this date has no clear release date, even with more than $400 million in funding raised already.
However, there are people optimistic about this project despite using Star Citizen as a reference. They have optimistic release dates of around 2025, to even as early as 2023.
Illuvium
This is one of the most highly anticipated game I’ve ever come across in my research. Almost every article or video talking about blockchain games to watch out for has this on their list.
Illuvium is a collectible NFT RPG and open-world game, where you can mine harvest, capture and fight Illuvials, the game’s unique NFT monsters.
It’s like Pokémon, where you capture monsters and harness their power for your use later. But in this case, you can earn rewards from it!
There are more than 100 Illuvials in existence, each with unique abilities, and can synergize with other Illuvials in order to create different bonuses for your team.
Your Illuvials can also evolve into something stronger, just like Pokemon, in a process they call Fusion. Some Illuvials are very hard to find, so getting to a Fused form can be hard.
The game developers have invested quite a lot in its marketing as seen in their cinematic trailer, and I do hope that that’s how the game’s going to look like.
One thing that I think is unique as well about this game is that it’s not just the monsters who battle with each other, the player can also be part of the battle while wearing armor. I just think that’s cool.
There are 2 tokens used for Illuvium:
- ILV – an ERC-20 token used as the game’s governance token.
- sILV – or synthetic ILV, which is given to players as their combat rewards and other in-game accomplishments.
2 things I love about this game:
- Immutable X as a layer 2 solution. When I read about this for the very first time, it didn’t make sense to me because I’m not a genius when it comes to the technical aspect of blockchain technology. But basically, the Immutable X protocol is like an upgrade to the Ethereum blockchain. It addresses the biggest issues users face in Etheruem — transaction speeds and high gas fees. With this protocol, transaction speeds increase to 9000 per second with no gas fees.
- Staking & Yield Farming is available. This is what most investors at Illuvium wanted to see for this project. Seeing that this game is projected to be a big one, it would be profitable to have a staking platform that can reward stakers for helping keep the ecosystem secure and running. Having this feature as early before the game is fully released helps with marketing the game to as many users as possible.
Illuvium is just one of the AAA games that is worth looking at and there is certainly hype behind it. I just hope that the developers will truly deliver on their promise and continue to create updates for the game even after it releases.
Final Thoughts
Those are the 5 NFT games I’m currently looking at. I’m quite excited on how these projects will turn out and whether or not I could make a sustainable income with it.
Crypto games can be risky too since their growth is highly dependent on the game’s popularity. Since crypto gaming is a new model, we don’t know how long a game’s popularity lasts.
Gaming is a very big industry and new games can pop up easily, moving a player base from one game to another, making the previous game lose value. This is something that game developers, players and investors will need to adapt to in order to keep thriving.
Game developers will have to keep innovating their games and create new things in order to keep their players engaged.
Players need to be aware of a game’s longevity and practicality if they’re hoping to use it as a stream of income.
Investors will need to be aware of a game’s potential, tokenomics and be on the constant lookout for changes in the crypto gaming space in order to make sure they’re generating returns on their investments.
TL:DR?
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