Do you remember the good old days of collecting panini stickers of your favourite sports athletes or when you knew someone that had a rare and very limited pokemon card? If you haven’t collected these physical items in your youth I’m sure you knew someone who did. It was the times when these items were not only collected but also traded, bought and sold for jaw-dropping amounts of money back then.
But all that was back when typical collectibles like these stickers or cards were only living in the physical world and was only carried around in big folders or in a plastic box. We’ve come a long way since then.
So what actually are NFT games?
NFT’s in gaming are in many cases very similar to those pokemon cards but have added advantages to them. One of the obvious differences are because they are digital there is no need to physically carry anything around anymore. But that is not the only benefit of digital items like NFT’s. As longs as you own it, you have the unique identity that also verifies its originality. That will also allow you to store it safely without having the risk of misplacing it or even risking it to be stolen. Then there is also the argument of selling it for a higher price based on their scarcity and offer it on NFT marketplaces in exchange for fiat money or cryptocurrencies.
Here are some of the NFT games you can play right now:
Sorare
Sorare, an Ethereum-based fantasy football game, is a recent example of NFT gaming. The players collect football player cards and create teams to compete against others in the game. It works almost like the traditional way of a fantasy sports league but with the added feature of collecting and owning your player in digital form namely as an NFT. And everything happens now in the virtual world compared to back then when you could only trade your valued items during classroom breaks. At a recent auction, the Sorare NFT digital card of Cristiano Ronaldo was sold for the record price of $ 290,000. Which is currently the most expensive NFT football card. (April 2021)
Cryptokitties
There might be newer NFT games around now but the actual first NFT game that created a lot of buzz was Cryptokitties. Users were able to buy one-of-a-kind digital cats and breed them on the blockchain. The owners could then collect or sell their digital kitties for a profit. And that obviously also attracted individuals who only played the game with the intention of making money like so many in the crypto space. The game created such high demand and interest that it caused major congestion on the Ethereum network. On their website, they still show a message about the congestion and the fee.
Terra Virtua
Another NFT game that just started to attract a bigger audience and is trending right now is Terra Virtua. Terra Virtua is gamifying the concept of digital collectibles through NFT’s. The intention behind this is that it should become easy and enjoyable to collect, experience and create NFT’s in a fun way. It uses the digital world with augmented reality, virtual reality and smartphones to combine all of it into a new experience. Collaborating with the big names like Paramount, Legendary and Unreal Engine definitely sounds like they are taking NFT gaming seriously.
Though NFT’s in gaming have not reached the level of popularity like big mainstream games yet it is exciting to see what comes next…
