In the blockchain industry, many people believe that games are a major application direction of blockchain, and NFT (Non-Fungible Token non-identical digital assets) can bridge the gap between blockchain games and traditional games.
Then let's compare the ideal NFT with the current NFT today to see if NFT has gone astray for blockchain games.
1.
Let's first assume an ideal NFT circulation route.
Taking "Sword Art Online" as an example, Kirito inherits the high-level account from SAO and enters ALO by default, and also has the gold coins obtained in SAO. Can arm a regiment.
For Kiritani Kazuto, the character of Kirito in the game has attributes like NFT, and the gold coin brought from SAO to ALO is FT (Fungible Token). The two games are based on the same The case flows successfully without the underlying design.
And if it is us personally, we have reached the director level in company A, and after entering company B, we can also use the accumulated experience of the former director as a starting point. Forcibly speaking, it is because people are different. Individuals are also different NFTs, their value is linked to their abilities, and it is difficult to be impersonated.
We can see the limitations in Kirito’s line. First, ALO is created based on the bottom layer of SAO. The bottom layer settings of the two games do not conflict. Secondly, the games are produced by the same team and there is no copyright dispute. Thirdly, although the Kirito account Hanging on the wall, but it did not seriously damage the balance of the ALO game (the person who was cut off was not the series that I stood up and talked without back pain). Finally, both ALO and SAO have a large number of players, which can fully demonstrate the value of Kirito's high-level account. And the circulation of gold coins is normal and there is no shortage or avalanche.
To put it simply, the ideal NFT needs to have several characteristics: having sufficient consensus support (value), not causing copyright disputes, being compatible with the world view, not disrupting the balance of other games, and having a unique proof mechanism that cannot be faked, etc. .
In today's game world, these settings Blizzard World is one of the relatively suitable worlds. The number of gamers in Blizzard World is sufficient, its games have no copyright disputes, the world view is compatible, and the balance of each other will not be disrupted. Blizzard's centralized certification is difficult to fake. (The advantages and disadvantages of the degree of decentralization will not be discussed in this article)...
Assuming that we get the corresponding hero units, such as Alsace, Tyrael, etc., after clearing the plots of War (genuine buyout), Diablo, etc., then we can directly use these heroes to fight in "Heroes of the Storm"—— Just as we expect that mobile games can communicate with end game accounts without having to buy heroes and skins again, this is something that NFT can do, but it also runs counter to the existing business model.
However, today's game business model does not have a particularly large pit that prevents the development of the game, and the ideal NFT circulation route is relatively difficult to navigate.
Whether it is a buyout system, time-based payment, or free to play, each mode has its audience, and the advantages and disadvantages of each other have been posted for many years.
2.
The top-down model cannot go through, and the route of "surrounding the city from the countryside" is indeed an option, so let's take a look at which NFTs are currently more popular.
We can see the 7-day trading volume of mainstream projects from the NonFungible.com website. Among them, the top two chain games are Cryptovoxels and Decentraland. The virtual reality game of Fangfang, the content of the game is mainly to buy and sell land, and freely create the content you want.
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NonFungible.com (screenshot from April 9)
The second-ranked Superrare and the ninth-ranked Markersplace are encrypted art projects, which is another important application of NFT. A few days ago, the encrypted art platform AsyncArt held an encrypted art auction, and the price of a single artwork can reach 160,000. The tenth Ethereum Name Service is a tool used to provide convenience.
NonFungible.com 2019 NFT Market Report (translated version of DappReview)
NFT is more suitable for these games such as collection and sims, and some important assets can be put on the chain, and there is no need for all of them to be on the chain. There are only a few valuable things in each game. It is still necessary to consider clearly what is really valuable and needs to be retained.
NonFungible.com 2019 NFT Market Report (translated version of DappReview)
On the contrary, we can imagine that, taking the recently popular Animal Crossing Friends Club as an example, we have completed the expansion of the house in the previous generations, and the material reserves are sufficient, and then these assets are chained and brought to Jila Animal Crossing Friends Club. For this Similar to simulation business games, most of the game experience is directly over.
We can also imagine that with the current partial chain interaction experience, we pick up an item in the backpack and click it, and throw an item and click it again. The picture is a bit beautiful.
3.
Blockchain games are still games in the final analysis, and NFTs are still assets in the final analysis. The former must be fun, and the latter must be ecological. Let's take a look at the ecological scale of NFT.
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NonFungible.com 2019 NFT Market Report (translated version of DappReview)
According to Coinmarketcap data, the current total market value of the global encryption market is around 209 billion US dollars (data on April 9), and the total market value of ERC-721 type NFTs on Ethereum is about one-thousandth of that.
In other words, even in existing markets, NFT still has a considerable amount of room for development.
However, the current vision of NFT is to serve as a tool to break the ice, so that people outside the circle can accept blockchain games through NFT, and even accept the entire blockchain ecology.
To a certain extent, this is like those game developers who are proud of not playing games. When they are not keen on the games they develop, they expect this game to be so popular that men, women and children will empty their pockets.
Even if payment and transactions are real rigid needs, mobile payment was not convenient before Alipay was launched, and the commonly used payment tools today are only Alipay and WeChat.
No matter how many NFT standards come out, no matter how many NFT assets are produced, it is like a variety of fancy public chains, few are practical, there is no large-scale circulation ecology, and it is no different from air.
It is better to find your own position and try to find opportunities and directions in the waves. Just like 3G and touch-screen mobile phones drive mobile games, maybe now we can also seek content that can be combined between chain games, 5G and cloud games.
Don't force NFT to become a PPT for publicity, it's worthless if it's good-looking.
In addition, the cover picture of this article is a painting by American concept illustrator Kevin Hong.
