Blockchain combines finance, NFTs, and games to bring not only the ability to earn passive income through its play-to-earn (P2E) scheme but other users such as investors and artists through GameFi and NFTs, too. Seeing the potential of the gaming industry, experts have developed several gaming-centric blockchains for building on.

This article will discuss the top blockchains used for developing blockchain games and why they are regarded as such. Before fully delving into that, I will give a surface explanation of the terms associated with blockchain gaming.

Terms Related to Blockchain Gaming

In the blockchain gaming industry, some terms are frequently used. They include:

Blockchain

This is a decentralized ledger with features like immutability, cryptography, interoperability, and programmability. These features make it possible to have permanent transaction records, own game collectibles, use game collectibles on other blockchains, and have seamless automated transactions, which are desirable in the blockchain gaming industry.

NFT

NFTs, also known as non-fungible tokens, are digital valuables that cannot be interchanged for like items. NFTs exist in different forms, including artworks, pictures, music, videos, clips, cartoons, etc. Once given a unique digital identity, it becomes an individualized property.

GameFi

GameFi is the general term used in the blockchain industry to refer to blockchain games. It was merged as a single word from “gaming” and “finance.” It is a useful term since it intertwines gaming and decentralized finance. The most popular model in GameFi is the self-explanatory play-to-earn model.

How Can We Combine These Terms to Understand Blockchain Gaming?

A blockchain game, otherwise known as GameFi, is built on the blockchain that allows players to earn collectibles (NFTs) and cryptocurrencies on gaming platforms. Unlike usual games, blockchain games enable users to own whatever they make by playing, outside of the game. Players can then sell them, or (sometimes) use them in other games.

Many games currently exist and are built on different blockchains. Let’s consider some of the features required of blockchains to create them.

Features of a Blockchain Useful to Building Blockchain Games

Smart Contract Compatibility

Blockchains that can be used for creating blockchain games must be smart contract compatible. Smart contracts are programmed codes that get executed when certain conditions are met. For instance, smart contracts automatically send an NFT to a user once a gamer gets to a certain level. Smart contracts are necessary to carry out financial transactions in games, among other things. 

NFT Compatibility

In gaming, NFTs can be bought, resold, earned, etc. In other words, NFTs are one key element in the gaming economy. The most valuable blockchains for building blockchain games must be NFT compatible and, ideally, easily transferred.

Metaverse and Interoperability

This means items collected in blockchain games must be compatible for use in other games, be able to interact in the metaverse, and have access to several markets hosted on the blockchain for easy trade. Interoperability is still rare but is becoming more common, particularly with bridges as we have seen with WAX and BSC.

The Top Blockchains for Building Blockchain Games

There are several blockchains available for building blockchain games. However, those rated as the most effective embody the features outlined above, amongst other attractive features.

Ethereum

Ethereum is one of the most famous blockchains. Being one of the first blockchains built, it has maintained an indelible place in the hearts of industry experts. More than that, the Ethereum blockchain has continually sought to improve and adapt to suit the many platforms being developed on it.

The Ethereum blockchain is considered one of the best blockchains to build games since it can easily be termed one of the foremost blockchains, as well as being one of the first to offer smart contracts and NFTs. Hence, it is a good fit for blockchain gaming. Nevertheless, it has infamous drawbacks, such as transaction speeds, gas fees, and network speeds, though many layer 2 solutions overcome those.

It is no wonder some of the most widely played games have been built on it. Some include F1 Delta Time, Zed Run, Cryptokitties, Mirandus, and over 530 other games.

BSC

The BSC (Binance Smart Chain) is a blockchain network built for running smart contracts. It is popularly known for its lower transaction fees and high speed (being able to complete transactions within 3 seconds). Having these, in addition to NFT compatibility and interoperability across a ton of blockchains, BSC stands out as being one of the top blockchains for building games.

Built using the Ethereum model, it is the go-to blockchain for those running from high Ethereum fees. Several game makers are aware of the advantages of the BSC network and this has led to a massive influx of game makers to build their games on BSC. As such, the BSC blockchain is host to top-ranking games like Mobox: NFT Farmer, Squid NFT World, Battle Pets, and over 430 other games.

WAX

The WAX blockchain is rated as one of the top blockchains for building blockchain games for the following reasons:

• It is NFT and smart contract compatible.
• It is scalable, able to handle over 15 million transactions daily.
• Its users have access to thousands of dApps (decentralized applications) and the world’s most exciting NFT marketplaces, such as Atomic Hub and NeftyBlocks.
• It uses a Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) consensus mechanism to be eco-friendly, being 125,000x more efficient than networks using Proof of Work (PoW) like Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Games available on the WAX blockchain include Alien Worlds, R-Planet, Kolobok Adventures, and over 60 other games.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, as we have several other blockchains on which some top-notch games have been built. Blockchains like Hive, Ronin, Polygon, EOS, Tron, and Immutable X are currently hosting over 100 great games worthy of note.

Conclusion

Blockchain gaming is changing the gaming industry as it was formerly known. It has revolutionized gaming by including features such as:

• Earning while playing games (play-to-earn)
• Complex virtual world creation with land ownership (metaverse)
• Game item ownership (through NFTs)

With these features and more to come, it is reasonable to expect an exponential rise in the number of games built on these top-rated blockchains.

Lead image by Error 420 on Unsplash

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Token Gamer and NFT Insider have decided to combine forces to launch a WAX-centric, weekly podcast, WAX Lyrical. John Nichols of NFT Insider and I will discuss a new topic every week, as well as feature special guests in the near future. If there’s a topic you’d like us to cover, make sure you let us know through the Token Gamer Discord or Twitter, or the NFT Insider Discord or Twitter.

In last week’s episode, we tackled a heavier and more difficult topic: “How to Navigate a Crypto Dip”. This week, it’s much lighter and it became impassioned almost instantly.

Episode 11: Why Do We Believe in NFTs?

This question, in a variety of forms, has cropped up in several podcast episodes so far. While both John and I have given brief answers, we decided to go deeper into our motivations, our beliefs, and our history in the space.

The regular listeners may know, but I got into crypto in a backwards order: I didn’t buy Bitcoin or Ethereum (that came much later), I bought WAX and Enjin — two blockchain gaming-centric coins. The financial world fascinates me, but where cryptocurrencies have my mind, blockchain has my heart.

From my first realization that I could own a skin, a weapon, or any in-game item, I dived in head-first. It was a solution to a problem I thought to be insurmountable, and yet, that was only the beginning. The applications of blockchain and NFTs span every nook and cranny — or at least have the potential to — and I believe it will touch damn near every industry.

So, why do you believe in NFTs? Join the #podcast-chat channel in our Discord and give us your answer.

We’d like to ask that if you listen to us on Apple Podcasts and/or Spotify that you rate us five stars and leave us a review if you enjoy WAX Lyrical. This helps both our podcast and the WAX ecosystem as a whole!

To listen to WAX Lyrical, you can find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Anchor, and Google Podcasts.

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Last year, amid rumors and screenshots of job boards, I wrote Reborn Powerhouse, GameStop, Is Hiring NFT and Web3 Team where I noted that “Ryan Cohen appears to be taking GameStop from an outdated brick-and-mortar retailer, to a pace-setter in the gaming industry.” That still appears to be the case and I’m pleased to see it — it’s a company that had been a staple of the early gaming industry and it would be disappointing to see them crumble with rigid high street shops.

Then, just last month, I highlighted a number of critical comments of GameStop over their NFT plans, including Michael Pachter stating the platform would be “dead on arrival” and that it is a “dumb idea.” While he raised some interesting points, I was not convinced by Pachter not the other business outlets being outwardly critical without much substance to their arguments. The underlining motivation appeared to be simply that there’s no reason for GameStop to build anything for web3. As I concluded last month though, “why not GameStop?”

GameStop and Immutable X Partner, Launch $100m Creator Fund

The billboard partnership is somewhat unexpected, but a pleasing one. Immutable has established itself as a leader in the blockchain gaming industry and with GameStop’s social clout, this is a mutually beneficial union. The creator fund of $100m $IMX is simply a cherry atop an already enticing cake.

One final, unsung victory of this partnership is the rise in value of the games already using Immutable X. Games like Gods Unchained, Guild of Guardians, and Ember Sword now may be able to interact with Gamestop, raising their profile substantially.

Let’s break down the key takeaways:

Key Takeaways

• L2 Protocol, Immutable X, will power the GameStop NFT marketplace
• It will be 100% carbon neutral and have zero gas fees
• a $100m $IMX fund will be made available for creators of NFT content and technology
• Potentially a huge win for games already on IMX

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It is also, indirectly, a staple of crypto history, because Vitalik Buterin, creator of Ethereum, did so after a spell was changed for his warlock in WoW. Looking back, it was something of a butterfly effect for modern technological events, and in a recent blog post, Buterin revisits WoW to ponder another game feature.

NFTs That Cannot Be Traded: The Soulbound Solution

NFTs being able to be traded — and thus bought and sold — have that dynamic at their backbone. Without that functionality, the NFT boom would not have existed, it’s pretty safe to say. However, when it comes to blockchain gaming, there are some issues with this.

Currently, there is a struggle in blockchain gaming where all the desired features utilizing blockchain cannot comfortably combine, at least if a great, competitive game is your desire. Play to Earn (P2E) is one mechanic, but if that is achieved through NFTs as opposed to just tokens, the enemy of gaming crops up with a vengeance: pay to win.

With WAX, you can make it so NFTs are not tradable, like Buterin is suggesting with “soulbound” NFTs. In WoW, particularly powerful items are “Bind on Pickup” which means as soon as you receive it, it’s bound to you and you cannot trade or sell it. This prohibits pay to win to an extent, but also hamstrings the economy and desirability of the NFTs.

Buterin’s chief point in his blog post is that web3 is too money-oriented currently, and it’s difficult to disagree, though far from unexpected. The internet saw a similar trajectory with an abundance of investment from titans of industry and the average person alike.

This is a deep topic that will require unpacking in a more substantial piece coming soon, but it’s well worth reading Buterin’s post and thinking through the problem in the meantime.

What do you think? Is there a place for “soulbound” NFTs? How could it best be utilized?

Lead image a composite including a photograph by John Phillips, used under Creative Commons via Wikimedia Commons

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Token Gamer and NFT Insider have decided to combine forces to launch a WAX-centric, weekly podcast, WAX Lyrical. John Nichols of NFT Insider and I will discuss a new topic every week, as well as feature special guests in the near future. If there’s a topic you’d like us to cover, make sure you let us know through the Token Gamer Discord or Twitter, or the NFT Insider Discord or Twitter.

In last week’s episode, we tackled the topic of what is needed for NFTs to continue their rise to ascension and establish themselves fully in the mainstream. This prompted a number of questions about NFTs and thoughtful discussions in our Discords, so we decided to dedicate an episode to answering some of the questions pitched to us.

Episode 8: Your Questions on NFTs Answered

There was a real spread of questions, from complex and above our paygrade, to more straightforward. The questions that have always grabbed me are ones surrounding the future and the role blockchain technology and NFTs will have in it. Since 2018 I have been thinking about them weekly and the answers for some are starting to become a little clearer. Nevertheless, most answers currently are mere speculation.

In this episode, John and I tackle which major game studio will be the first to truly adopt blockchain, whether NFTs are risky in and of themselves, and whether blockchain is at odds with the EU right to be forgotten legislation, among others.

We are hoping to do an episode like this every few months, so if you have any questions, make sure you send them to us. Similarly, we’d love any feedback or thoughts you have on the podcast.

Finally, we’d like to ask that if you listen to us on Apple Podcasts and/or Spotify that you rate us five stars and leave us a review if you enjoy WAX Lyrical. This helps both our podcast and the WAX ecosystem as a whole!

To listen to WAX Lyrical, you can find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Anchor, Google Podcasts, and YouTube.

The post WAX Lyrical, Episode 8: Your Questions on NFTs Answered appeared first on Token Gamer.

When Enjin started out, the NFT industry had a market cap in the region of $30 million. Four years later, it has a cap of around $22 billion. The growth has been so wild and sudden (in contrast to normal industries) that much of the infrastructure couldn’t keep up. While Ethereum is the home of some of the most famous NFTs, the network’s maximum transactions, speed, and gas fees have become crippling and untenable.

These limitations put Enjin in a precarious position: stay at the mercy of Ethereum and wait for 2.0, or create a solution. Enter, Efinity.

What Is Efinity?

Blockchain technology can be convoluted and enigmatic, making it tricky to explain concisely and clearly. This is a problem I run into most weeks and so I will try to demystify Efinity here as succinctly as possible.

Efinity is a blockchain in its own right, built on the Polkadot network. Polkadot is a blockchain platform that can operate two types of blockchain: relay chains and parachains.

A relay chain is a central chain for Polkadot and while it has limited functionality and it can’t execute smart contracts, for example (by design), it runs security and connects Polkadot’s parachains. It is Polkadot’s heart.

A parachain is its own blockchain that simply uses the relay chain’s resources to confirm transactions. Efinity is a parachain. Efinity, therefore, operates as a sovereign blockchain with its own tokenomics, data, and state.

To become a parachain on Polkadot is far from easy. For a permanent slot, you need to be “Common Good” which is essentially bridges or other utility chains for the betterment of the network, or win an auction. To win a parachain auction you must yourself bid $DOT and rally your community to do the same, which is what Efinity has done.

(An interesting aside: As Enjin did with Ethereum by creating the ERC-1155 token standard, they are developing a new token standard for Polkadot too, called Paratokens. There will also be a bridge from Ethereum to Efinity and vice versa, but that’s a little too deep for here, read this section of Efinity’s whitepaper instead.)

Why Is This Important for Enjin?

As discussed, Enjin’s foundations are in Ethereum and thus, Ethereum’s flaws are Enjin’s too. Those gas fees, transaction speeds, and the low transaction ceiling mean that for Enjin to keep up with the blockchain gaming space, they needed to evolve. Efinity is exactly that: it’s Enjin evolving. Efinity will have a much lower transaction fee (2.5%) or free if you utilize JumpNet, and the Efinity alpha was “processing 120 million tokens in one transaction, with batches of 12,000 transactions.”

I tipped my cap at Enjin in our Token Gamer Blockchain Gaming Awards 2021 because although they don’t have the player numbers of rival chains, they have the excellent Enjin Adopter Program, a $100m metaverse fund, and the best blockchain SDK for Unity currently.

However, what they need is successful blockchain games and that’s difficult when every transaction — and blockchain games are extremely heavy on transactions — costs from $10 to $400 in gas fees. That’s before we look at network performance. Efinity is Enjin’s opportunity to not only support blockchain game development and the emerging industry, but to have projects in and around the top of DappRadar’s charts.

The post Efinity Parachain Wins Polkadot Auction: Why This Is Important for Enjin appeared first on Token Gamer.

Any blockchain that enables, supports, and promotes growth in blockchain gaming has our interest. As a result, we closely follow multiple chains and argue that anyone interested in the space ought to too. The rise of interoperability with blockchains is further evidence for that!

In the last three and a half years — but particularly in the last 12 months — one blockchain has seen staggering growth and has underpinned the rapid adoption of blockchain games this year.

WAX Reaches 10 Million Accounts

WAX has had something of a billboard year in 2021. I won’t go into too much depth on that topic as — and this is a sneak preview — WAX Lyrical‘s episode this week will be a wrap-up for this year. However, we have covered a number of impressive feats achieved by WAX that have been observed in a number of recent industry reports. For example, “WAX blockchain’s number of active wallets grew by 1,082%.” Similarly, one of the best blockchain games currently available, Splinterlands, which uses both WAX and Hive, “Splinterlands increased its active users by 3,267% from the end of Q2 2021.”

Now, WAX has capped off this superb year, full of achievements, with one hell of a milestone: 10,000,000 accounts. Further proof that if you use a crypto’s price as the metric to judge it, you’ll forever be behind the curve. Here’s to 2022!

The post WAX Rounds off 2021 With Incredible 10 Million Account Milestone appeared first on Token Gamer.

PlayNFT’s Twitch Plugin

PlayNFT, created by Enigma Games, is a platform that has been created with the express intention of increasing the value of NFTs for blockchain gamers. One product the company is working on has caught my eye, however, and that’s their plugin for Twitch.

The PlayNFT will allow users to mint NFTs using Enjin’s Efinity parachain, use the marketplace (as well as the Enjin X Marketplace), but also to add utility to the NFTs, making them usable in applicable games. What is most interesting is the way in which the PlayNFT plugin will work within Twitch. This is another string to Enjin’s bow as they aim to cultivate a formidable blockchain gaming ecosystem.

The plugin will enable streamers to reward their viewers with game NFTs and utilize blockchain to interact with their viewership. If you have watched any blockchain games streamed — and I do many times per week — you will see the need for this tool; any mention of an NFT giveaway has the viewer numbers spike instantly.

The Future of Twitch

If executed properly, I can’t see how the PlayNFT plugin isn’t a success. Enabling blockchain functionality for streamers ought to be paramount to streaming platforms like Twitch. As blockchain gaming grows and bleeds into traditional gaming, the desire for being able to reward viewers with more than vanity channel coins will rise.

This is the first step along that path — an important path — and I hope to see more functionality added in the future. It would be great to see some cross-chain functionality, for example.

Mark my words, it won’t be long before we can scarcely remember a time when streamers didn’t reward their audience with NFTs.

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Today, WAX has announced that the collectible marketplace, Dibbs.io, has taken Amazon on as an investor. Dibbs uses the WAX blockchain for NFTs as well as WAX’s vIRL technology. This may seem a roundabout way that WAX and Amazon have interacted, but it serves two purposes: huge potential growth in exposure for WAX and further discovery of their vIRL system.

WAX has a clear focus on blockchain gaming with games that have spent all year dominating the DappRadar charts, but the space moves quickly and there are bigger and bigger fish swimming in the waters. For AAA studios and heavily backed projects to use the WAX blockchain, it needs to be as established as possible — this is a stride in the right direction.

WAX’s vIRL technology is particularly pertinent to how Dibbs works as Dibbs is a spot market for trading fractional interests in collectibles.

“Dibbs uses tokenized representations of physical assets (Item Tokens) to enable instant trades, either for a full Item Token or a fraction of one. These tokens exist and are transferable on the WAX network.

The physical assets are held by a third-party custodian. A holder of 100% of a Collectible Token can choose to take possession of their asset by surrendering the Item Token to the custodian and requesting shipment of the card to their address.”

This is the perfect system for WAX’s vIRL. To understand why, here is a summary of the technology.

What is WAX vIRL?

The concept behind vIRL NFTs is that you can own a physical item without “redeeming” it. That is, it is held securely and can be traded like any other NFT without postage. We have seen several major collections on the WAX blockchain utilize this technology, such as Hot Wheels and their rarest NFTs having a physical counterpart.

As Dibbs assets are or can be fractionalized, the physical cards are kept in a secure location. If you buy the entire asset, you can utilize WAX’s vIRL technology and redeem take “physical custody of the underlying physical asset”.

Closing Thoughts

This is the first major and lasting partnership for WAX’s vIRL and with Amazon’s backing, it could become important to the success of the technology. There are myriad applications for vIRL and I can imagine a number of ways in which gaming can benefit. For instance, many gamers buy collector editions of their favorite titles so that they can own the box and its art — that would be a perfect example. This is without mentioning that Amazon themselves could greatly benefit from vIRL.

The reactive price spike of WAX should be considered secondary to the swelling influence of the chain, from AMC Cinemas and Spiderman to Amazon and collectibles — and that’s just the last 30 days. This growth for a blockchain focused on gaming is of great interest to anyone involved in the blockchain gaming space.

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This week has taken us on a wild ride, however, with two landmark sales, one in Axie Infinity and one in Decentraland. The latter strikes me as more of a corporate, marketing play, but the former appears to be just a wealthy player making an investment.

What Is a Land Plot in Axie Infinity?

As blockchain technology bridges the gap between the physical and the digital, we are beginning to see exclusively physical concepts recreated in digital terms. Now that we can own digital items, which is the driving force of the NFT movement, there was inevitably going to be a move towards virtual property and land ownership. Within any gaming world, the space can be divided up into plots and then sold, just as you would with real-life real estate.

Axie Infinity, the blockchain monster battling and breeding game that ignited interest this year, is based in the world, Lunacia. This game world is divided into a 301-by-301 grid, with each square representing a tokenized, and thus ownable, plot of land called Terra. These plots come in varying rarities and offer some benefits.

At a basic level, the plots can be bought, sold, and rented out. However, they are also customizable, can host shops, house NPCs, summon monsters, access dungeons, and offer content creators a number of opportunities. Therefore, they are seen as an investment above and beyond owning a scarce NFT in a highly popular blockchain game.

NFTs: Confusing Ageing Accountants Since 2017

As the title of this article suggests, there has been a sizeable purchase made for a plot of land in Axie Infinity. The land was sold for 550 Ethereum, which at the time of sale, is somewhere in the region of $2,300,000. The land is the rarest form, Genesis.

A Genesis Land Plot just sold for 550 ETH!

That's over 2.3 M USD!

Our player-owned Digital nation continues to shock the world pic.twitter.com/SVvAtFNYUF

— Axie Infinity (@AxieInfinity) November 24, 2021

As I mentioned, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen digital land sell for Bugatti prices… this week. We have also just seen Metaverse Group buy a desirable and large plot of land in Decentraland for 616,000 $MANA, which was $2,430,000 at the time of purchase.

Final Thoughts

I find it difficult to square the price with the purchase at the moment. While getting land in a major and lasting blockchain game could prove a wise investment, many of the games we see now will likely be replaced unless they continue to build and innovate relentlessly. It makes more sense to me for a company like Metaverse Group to make a purchase of this caliber on the grounds of it being glorious PR as you bamboozle and irritate mainstream media.

It has been a wild week and it’s not even Friday yet. By Sunday I fully expect Zuckerberg to have bought a planet in Alien Worlds for $1.2 billion.

Lead image made in part with work by Flavien on Unsplash

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