It’s been a while! I’ve been quite busy with my scholarship called SereiaScholarship. We received OVER 500 applications in 24 hours. Unreal stuff. We cannot meet the demand and we hope to get to everyone we can.
For today’s article, I am going to talk about NFT Gaming and its emerging esports scene. I will specifically talk about Axie Infinity but I do believe there will be a major esports scene inside of the NFT gaming universe one day.
What is NFT Gaming?
NFT Games is a new trend of games that use blockchain technology which allow players to earn NFTs and cryptocurrencies just by playing the game. Games like DotA 2, Fortnite, and League of Legends showed us that you can make tens of billions of dollars from a free to play game. But if you look at gaming from a player’s perspective, what can be better than a free-to-play game? Well, a game that pays you to play, which is essentially the new model of play-to-earn games.
Most NFT Games have some sort of upfront cost at the moment and refer to something called “play to earn”. For example, a team could cost $500, you earn $10-20 a day and your break even would be 33 days. Afterwards, you can decide to grow your teams or simply put the game down and sell your initial team + gain what you earned. The more you play, the more you earn and you receive ROI or a breakeven.
What is esports?
Esports has been for quite some time. I simply refer to it as competitive gaming at the highest level. There are many esports and the definition has evolved over time. When I first started out, I thought esports were strictly hardcore titles such as CSGO, Dota, Quake and more. Now, as I’ve been in the industry for nearly a decade, it’s much more broad. Many titles could theoretically be defined as an esport. It does depend a lot on if the esport is any good and the tier of it etc. That’s another discussion though :D. Read my blog for a lot of my articles on events and esports best practices. The industry is growing year over year but still has revenue issues.
What are some esports inside of NFT Gaming?
I will talk about NFT Gaming and esports as I continue blogging (with revisiting esports discussion and how to’s etc). Currently, the esports scene inside of NFT Gaming is VERY emerging. There are very few titles with working games but that will change over time. The 300 lb gorilla though is Axie Infinity. With 1.6m active daily users and nearly $400m in revenue in August, it is poised to be one of the top games potentially.
For full disclosure, I will be hosting an event from October 30-31 for 150 AXS (around $10,500 USD as of time of writing). It should be exciting as we are one of the first to host an event in North America for the NFT Gaming space. You can check out full details at beat.gl
Challenges NFT games will face from an esports perspective?
Adoption and usability will be a key issue for a lot of esports scenes inside of NFT Gaming. Ramping on people to their game and convincing them crypto has a valid use case may be difficult for mass adoption. There is a lot of misinformation about crypto and it’s usability isn’t always the friendliest for new users. There will need to be a key driver to incentivize the normal users to get on the game. Additionally, their games may not primarily be balanced around PVP engagement but rather economic decisions so many aspects need to be considered.
Game clients may be clunky as building software is very difficult. Things taken for granted in regular esports titles like lobbies may or may not exist. There’s a demand of “esports ready” (LUL) when games launch. However, many games are actually in beta and will need time. So publishers and fans need to be aware of the challenges while building in this exciting new space. It’s one thing to announce a game and have ideas and it’s another thing entirely to build it.
It is also not very intuitive at the moment to game for a lot of NFT Games.
What is the future of esports with NFT Gaming?
I strongly believe that many of the same principles will apply to esports inside of NFT Gaming but there will be a very large knowledge gap when things ramp up. If anyone reading this wants to enter the esports scene of NFT Gaming scene, combine both of your passions and get in on this now. Buy some eth, buy some AXS, Axies or whatever game you want to play and just learn how everything works. This is not financial advice so make sure you just buy a small amount and learn about everything you can. Be aware of common scams and rugs.
There will be a need for producers, shout casters, accountants, HR, lawyers, project managers and more roles that may not even exist right now. There are so many roles that will be needed in which you will need to understand crypto and have a background in esports. If you’re unsure where to start, make sure you read a guide on networking and just get started in esports. I believe that NFT Gaming will be a new an exciting sector for esports organizers, teams and software as a service providers. We are just scratching the surface on this new and exciting industry so make sure you expand your horizons!
If you’re curious about NFT gaming or esports and not sure where to start, feel free to reach out.