I remember the days when the games were simple. You buy the CD and install the game and just play it. Then came the Gacha concept where you put on money to have specific item or experience. Its like vending machine type of the logic in the game. You put in money, you get the skin or the extra level. And it would even give you some edge to win against others.

This concept has been helping the developers constantly make changes to keep game relevant for years. So one-off release games may end in lifespan but multiplayer, network and the internet enabled games would require one to constantly fund into such games and so they would want the users to pay for the efforts. And this leads to gatekeeper gaming mentality. You pay on the top of purchase price and experience the game life.

Let's talk about NFTs

Yeah, they are cool. But they have a cost. Like you can earn free NFTs but they won't have much scarcity attached. Like 1000 of people have the NFTs what value it would have in the market, right? Now what if 1 or 2 people have the rare NFT now that would increase the price of the NFT. And so the economy is likely to move around such type of the NFTs.

Now there are NFTs which are used in the game ecosystem as a means to entry. Like you buy the character to play in the game. You are funding the game dev this way and then build the characteristic around that NFT character. This in turn builds a system where each user is milked to fund the game development. However the scarcity part if it doesn't exists the game starts to lose value. And so does the NFTs eventually.

This is currently happening to games like Axie, Kara and few others. The reason being your item needs to be limited in number and have some value which does not always require pumping the artificial value to keep game relevant. So that's one issue with the NFT gaming.

What about Gatekeeping?

Some folks may say that it's reasonable to do gatekeeping. After all, the game developers need to make money. But let's talk about how it is going out of hands. You buy game character as an entry fee. You level up the character with entry fee. You churn in the game for artificial rewards which does not have real world value. And then finally when your NFT in the game has not much scarcity it ends up putting more stress on the game player.

If you are a free gamer not paying for any item. Your journey and the experience in such games are extremely limited.

Game player ends up feeling the stress of this churn. You are spending the money. You are expecting something in return. Because every experience in the game is taxed. You are going to be living the stressed life. This makes you wonder what seems to be the point of staying in the stress. So such gatekeeping is kind of painful for the gamers.

NFT games are good. NFT games can be a future. But for now it is breeding a branch of Gacha gaming. Which is kind of not good for the average gamers who are just trying to make the money or even play the game for the experience. I hope in the near future, some good blockchain games come out which does not tax much and think of the gamers experience too. 

What do you think of those NFT games which are kind of turning out to be gatekeeping games on the blockchain?