In my last post, I pointed to the problems I see with the common implementation of the play2earn model for NFT games. I may not love what I see in the NFT game space so far, but I'm still excited about the potential that this type of gaming has for completely revolutionizing the way we play games in the future. I think NFT-based games are a great idea. You can buy an NFT, which is basically like buying a ticket to play the game for as long as you want. When you finish playing, you can sell your ticket to someone else who wants to play and spend your earnings to buy a ticket to the next game. In the past, you had to buy the entire game, and there weren't many great options for reselling that game later. Sure, you could do it, but you typically sold your used game for pennies on the dollar compared to what you paid for it. But using NFTs for access to games makes it entirely possible to sell your access to the game as much as you paid for it as long as the game is still popular. If the game becomes more popular over time, you can even sell your access for more than you originally paid. There may also be opportunities to earn additional income just by playing the game.

That's wonderful for the players, but the most exciting aspect of NFT gaming is the fact that the producers can get paid a percentage of the selling price every time a player sells a game asset in-game or on a secondary market. Since I'm not a game developer (maybe someday, but not yet), it might seem surprising that this would be something that would excite me. But it really does. I think that this, more than anything else, will make more and more games move to the blockchain and improve the experience for all gamers.

Right now, there is a great opportunity for game producers to come up with NFT-based games that are fun to play, have a very low cost of entry, don't require additional investments to complete the game, and focus on providing a rewarding experience instead of income-earning opportunities. How can producers make money off of these games? By claiming a percentage off of every NFT purchased. Not just the original sale, but every resale of the NFT by anyone. Forever. The key to making this profitable would be to create a game that is fun to play for a while, but has an achievable ending. It's important, too, to build the game so that players can't just buy high-level assets and shortcut the actual game experience. The game should take time and effort to play. After the player has played for a few weeks or months, they reach the end of the game. And then they sell their NFT character and maybe some tools or accessories they've crafted in the game to someone else who wants to play. Every time that happens, the producers would make money. A year later, the player may find they are missing the game, or maybe there's an update unlocking extra levels or experiences. The NFTs are cheap enough that the player buys another on the secondary market and plays the game again. Guess what? The producer gets paid. Again. As long as the game is fun to play, people can keep selling these tickets back and forth to one another indefinitely. Since some of the money from each sale goes to the producer, the player will need some way to supplement the value lost with each sale of the NFT. But a limited source of passive income in the game would be enough to offset this loss and keep the value of the main game NFTs relatively stable.

There are ways to encourage more trading within the game and to encourage people to buy new NFTs each time they play the game. You could specialize each character type, so every time someone plays through the game, they can buy a different player NFT that has a different character specialty. That way, each time they play the game, they have a completely different game experience. In addition, players could craft accessories in-game and sell them to other players. Maybe one character type can craft weapons, but another type can craft armor. Players need both weapons and armor to survive, so there's always going to be a market for players to buy from and sell to one another. Every time they sell an item they've crafted, the producer gets a piece of the sale.

Want to make sure the economy doesn't get flooded with equipment? Make non-player NFTs limited in durability. Maybe they can break in-game and become worthless (Myradun has a system like this, but players can burn broken equipment for some game tokens so it's not a total loss). As long as the player can craft enough new equipment to keep on selling it to other users and buying the equipment those users sell, the player gets what they need to keep playing without having to invest more of their own money to continue the game. The player will be happy with this arrangement, and the producer gets paid with every transaction. 

It's OK to have some income-generation opportunities in the game. In fact, it's probably ideal. If the producers are getting a percentage of every NFT sold, the player is not getting the full price from the sale. This isn't terrible compared to the pittance gamers get today from selling used games, but in-game income generation opportunities can offset that loss. The income should be proportional to how much value the player is adding to the game ecosystem. Forget the idea of passive income, where players get rewards without contributing to the game experience for other players. These systems ultimately flood the market with useless assets, rendering everyone's inventory worthless. Only players who actively play the game should be able to generate income or mint new assets, and only if doing so improves the game for other players. In my last article, 2WYCE suggested the need for playANDearn games rather than play2earn. I think that's a great way to describe this type of game.

The real trick to making this work is to entice producers with long-term vision to bring their games to the blockchain. We need producers and developers who would rather deliver quality content than make a fast buck. I firmly believe that current and future developers fitting this description are out there in large numbers. I also believe that building quality content with a focus on long-term sustainability will generate more money (and more new jobs) in the long run than decades of pump-and-dump games ever could. There's no doubt that it would provide a better game experience for players. It's a slower journey towards success, but if done correctly, it has the potential to reach unimaginable levels of financial and social success.