FTX.US announced that they will be launching a new blockchain gaming unit. FTX.US is the US division of the larger international FTX exchange that is used in trading NFTs, payment services, and so on.
The company’s goal is to bring more gaming developers to a blockchain gaming system. This may incentivize players via NFTs or crypto tokens. FTX plans on launching this platform to help gaming companies establish their tokens and support NFTs. There is already a remote team being formed to help partner companies with this integration.
There are over 2 billion gamers all around the world. Many are collecting digital items in their games and this would give them the ability to own them too. They believe companies could use this opportunity to reward their most loyal users. NFTs would allow these users to have ownership over the items they earned playing.
Nevertheless, this integration could lead to many problems. The main problem would-be hackers and scammers. They can use this integration in a way to exploit players.
NFTs in gaming are not profit-seeking
In 2021, people spent over $90 billion on microtransactions. Most of those transactions came from gamers that wanted to treat themselves and buy new costumes and weapon skins. Many of these gamers are very passionate about their games. Some of them do not mind spending high sums of money on extremely rare items.
We have an example of Counter-Strike weapon skin that was sold for $61,000 on the auction. Back in 2012, a single weapon in Diablo III was sold for over $8,000. Many see gaming items selling for crazy high prices as a phenomenon.
The first company that tried integrating NFTs into their game was Ubisoft. Ubisoft created many popular games which have been of great accomplishments, such as Far Cry and Assassin’s Creed. Regardless, integrating NFT into a shooter game called Ghost Recon Breakpoint was a failure.
The reviews on this experiment were overwhelmingly negative. Back in 2021, only around 20 NFTs were sold in total. Other gaming companies agreed that they would not pursue NFTs if the only purpose of it is money-making.
New microtransaction system
To help demonstrate how NFTs in gaming would work, we can take any card collecting game as an example. Every card collected can essentially become its own NFT. You can then use that card to sell its ownership to other players. Nonetheless, the company would cut the sale that has been put on the auction. Theoretically, the company can also open up new revenue that would be based only on those resales.
People believe that NFTs are going to be a new way of paying microtransactions in video games. There have been similar concepts such as battle passes or loot boxes.
A huge part of the player base has fear of missing out on things in-game. It is believed that NFTs would easily siphon the money out of those individuals.
Your capital is at risk.
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