In our first article – together with Doug Dyer, our VP of Gaming and Entertainment at Innovecs Games – we discussed how blockchain technology has changed through the last years (spoiler – it’s something different than it was five years ago), and what opportunities it provides today for gamers and publishers.
Now, we continue the topic and would like to talk more about NFTs and how they enhance the development of the gaming industry.
It is still at the early adoption stage. There are about 300 announced NFT-based games out there. Only a few of them have launched. Some of them that were launched are doing very well – like Axie Infinity or others that are making lots of money. But many are still in the development stage.Doug DyerVP of Gaming and Entertainment at Innovecs Games
Doug helped us understand why companies focus on developing NFTs and how this helps grow their business. So, below we identified three main areas: economy, community, and marketing.
There were a lot of pre-released NFTs sold out, which are called generative NFTs, companies sell them out when the game is not even scheduled or is planned for another year or even later. They sell and resell them for much more money. So, this is still for economic purposes – it’s an investment play.Doug DyerVP of Gaming and Entertainment at Innovecs Games
Usually, companies sell NFTs and take the money they earn for developing the game. For example, the company under Colony Online sold 25,000 characters at 0.025 ETH each. They already had a community of over 6000 people and all of the NFTs were sold out in like the next 48 hours. These 6000 people were also reselling these NFTs to the secondary market scaling the community and having the right to participate in the development process and see how things were going. This was back in October. And the company raised millions of dollars.
Also mentioned was around the community. NFTs are a good way to keep people interested in the upcoming release and spread news between those who invest in the title before it’s launched.
NFTs are a way to help grow the community. People own in-game NFTs and this automatically gives them some keys, perks, and benefits to the world. They may be allowed to vote for game features, new characters, and other game content because they invested in it before the game is launched to markets. They sell those to secondary markets, earn money, and promote the game.Doug DyerVP of Gaming and Entertainment at Innovecs Games
Building community logically leads to natural game marketing. Not only does this help you build the community prior to the game release, the goal is to have thousands of people in your community when the game is going to be released who are ready to go ahead and play the game. So, you not only finance the game but also market it quite effectively.
Today most of the NFT-based games are desktop web-based. Mobile is coming, however, and mobile automatically means App Store and Play Markets where Apple and Google take their fees.
I think Apple is now not allowing NFT games, and neither is Google. So, for now, there has to be another distribution method – and I think that’s the main reason why you are not seeing mobile games out there.Doug DyerVP of Gaming and Entertainment at Innovecs Games
We hope you liked this article and came across some valuable insights.
We continue the series of our expert blockchain-related articles, and we would like to make a final stop at the Gaming Metaverse. Coming Soon!
