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The NFT craze is going on and on despite the fact that the market is having a downturn for a while now. The hype has caught the spark due to blockchain games like The Sandbox, Axie Infinity and more. For some time, the fire appeared to have contained within the cryptosphere, but it seems like it’s now spreading like a wildfire. But there are some traditional “firefighter” gamers who are trying to push back this spread.
Ubisoft became the very first mainstream organization to pick a burning coal from the NFT sector and put it into their ecosystem, thinking it would fuel their engine. They decided to release non-fungible tokens associated with Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint dubbed Digits in December 2021. The company said that players are required 600 hours of gameplay to earn ‘Wolf Enhanced Helmet A’ NFT. The community threw their criticism and the engine busted before going any farther.
In September 2022, Sega announced their collaboration with doublejump(dot)tokyo regarding promotion of IP rights of the flagship characters like Sonic The Hedgehog using NFTs. Konami, the company behind Pro Evolution Soccer, revealed their plans to bring Castlevania to the NFT arena following the franchise’s 35th anniversary in January 2022. Both these instances met with backfire from the community. Majority of the opposers included fans of the mentioned characters.
Sonic the Hedgehog fans were especially disappointed over the fact that the company who gave them a game that’s about preventing a mechanized and toxic wasteland, is doing exactly the opposite. Steam, a leading video game digital distribution service, put an end to any game that incorporated NFTs in their ecosystem.
Many gamers believe that NFTs are all about cash grabs and zero skills. Play-to-earn games are good for the “Suits” as they are chasing after profits, unlike the game developers who are just trying to give the world something of “value”. Moreover, the gamer backlash is good for the situation. It is similar to the lobbyist groups trying to influence the actions and decisions of government officials to direct them towards betterment of people. It can help shape the scenario for good and weed out the cash grabbers.
Moreover, these blockchain-based tokens are believed to be environmentally toxic considering the energy consumption associated with them. Recently, Ethereum shifted its functioning from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake, which the developers say will reduce 99% of the carbon footprints from the operations.
After all this debate, we can talk about the increasing demand for player to player in-game items marketplace. Now NFTs can actually be helpful here as there are platforms like OpenSea, Magic Eden, Rarible and more allowing users to trade their non-fungible tokens from games like Axie Infinity, The Sandbox, Decentraland and more to generate revenue streams.
NFTs have not yet gone mainstream but there is a possibility that they may, in fact, become a vital element in our lives considering this growing phenomena called the metaverse. Experts believe that non-fungible tokens will become one of the pillars in this yet to arrive digital economy.
Anurag is working as a fundamental writer for The Coin Republic since 2021. He likes to exercise his curious muscles and research deep into a topic. Though he covers various aspects of the crypto industry, he is quite passionate about the Web3, NFTs, Gaming, and Metaverse, and envisions them as the future of the (digital) economy. A reader & writer at heart, he calls himself an “average guitar player” and a fun footballer.
