Interactive game markets have always been essential for multi-player roleplaying games to succeed. The simple path of collecting every single asset needed for a complex advantage in a game is too time-consuming and frequently too challenging for a player to complete all on their own, especially with a regular life away from a gaming computer. Even teenagers and those lucky enough to not have to work to pay their bills find many build paths almost not doable without months of dedicated work 24/7. The solution? Leveraging others to find the resources needed has usually proven faster, lower cost in time and effort, and smarter for gaming enjoyment.

The Value of Trading

While Far From Home, still in a beta form, has providing a very basic starting market for players' resources mined, linkage to the NFT secondary market has proven already to be far more lucrative and game-sustaining, giving players willing to grind the ability to get paid for their efforts in wax tokens that can then be injected back into Far From Home for ships, fuel and even their own resource needs.

Now, with a quiet but critical change, game designers have added direct linkage to secondary markets on Atomic Hub for easy purchasing of build resources. This does two things: 1) it reduces the wait time in theory as players can directly buy what they need right away, and 2) it cuts down time and energy searching for who has the given resource needed. The Achilles' heel in the matter is whether the secondary market has all the goods needed. Since the game linkage is resource-specific, the dependency assumes others players will see the opportunity and start posting those needed resources mined or manufactured for their own profit. Ergo, one hand feeds the other if everyone responds (and, of course, that's the point of this article to build awareness).

How Does the Market Link Work?

The game weaves market access into the build process, depending on what a player needs at the time of manufacturing. Going into the manufacturing tab of the game GUI, the options for builds with refined resources becomes available.

Once a manufacturing item is clicked and set up for an order, that's when the market links become apparent. So, in the example here, Silicon Waffer manufacturing requires refined materials of Silicon and Boron. To the right of those elements a player sees what they have in their inventory versus what is needed for the order to commit. Right side of that, there is now a "BUY" button. This is linked to the AtomicHub secondary Wax NFT market, pulling up any available NFTs for that resource.

When clicked, a new browser page opens, and the player is brought to the secondary market page (seen below). If there are NFTs available (incorporating 100 units of the given resource each), then the player can buy the resource directly if the in-game warehouse inventory is short to complete the order. 

Once obtained, it's a simple matter of going back to the game, switching to the Warehouse tab, accessing the player's wallet and transferring the just-bought NFTs into the game for manufacturing use. Now the build order can be completed.

Market Dynamics Enhanced

Connecting the existing NFT secondary market is one step closer to full game utilization, which is necessary for long-term player retention. People need a reason to keep engaging in a game, especially where the activities can be redundant and even "boring" over a long period to build up to a given target. Game designers are well aware players are willing to grind a game (engage repeatedly for small rewards) if they have a viable path to a critical game boost for significantly-enhanced experience. This model has proven itself time again in old MMPORG games like Ultima Online and Warcraft as well as modern-day games like Dayz and Helldivers2. However, what pushes games further with interaction is the leveraging of capitalist models, allowing players to develop their own business models for growth and advantage. Linking to secondary NFT markets does exactly that. 

Ideally, both secondary market and in-game player markets can be developed to work in tandem, but that takes a lot of time, coding and planning to build correctly. Ironically, players were still able to find ways to make the two work in older games that didn't have that linkage, connecting sales on eBay for digital game goods and then engaging in actual player transfers in-game to execute the sales. The black market trend was so powerful, Warcraft actually tried to ban players from the eBay market, pushing them entirely to in-game auction houses to contain the behavior. It sort of worked; people just sold the whole boosted account on eBay instead.

What to Expect

For now, Far From Home developers continue to push changes and updates weekly, many small and sometimes a few big. While the market linking seems a big deflating in excitement, in practice it sets the next stage for building a game economy. Now, it's up to players to take advantage of the opportunity, find their role as resource miner, provider, refiner or consumer, and make it work.

 Other Articles on WAX's New Intersteller Game, Far From Home, and How to Play

See here for valuable quick start guides and how to get into space smart instead of being confused:

• Getting Started (Far from what?)
• Ship Navigation (how do I steer this darn thing?!?)
• Space Fuel Management (don't run out of gas on the far side of an asteroid!)

Where to find ships on the Wax Network:

• How to get started with Wax
• Wax markets: AtomicHub, NeftyBlocks, NFTHive (buying ships and resources)