Can Table Games Switch to the NFT Gaming Format?
Bogdan LashchenkoEvery year we can notice more and more indicators of growth of the gaming industry, esports and digital asset sphere start to overlap. The borders get thinner and thinner, gaming products are not confined in the Web2 technology and they work on blockchain.
The most common activity in the cryptocurrency industry that could be related to gaming is likely to be NFT games and metaverses. Today we are talking about how NFT can cross over collection card games and board games and we will also see who of the developers has already accepted the progress, and who still doesn’t want to have anything in common with the world of digital assets.
Axie Infinity — an icon of the NFT gaming
Axie Infinity is the first thing that comes to mind when we think about a successful example of performance of collection card games in the Web3 technology in the NFT sphere.
The project appeared in 2020 but the game did not become popular at once. Even though the game was appreciated and it welcomed enough players, the real hype was still awaiting Axie Infinity in 2021 during the bull run and Bitcoin peak.
As we know, November 2021 became the quintessence of the whole cryptocurrency world so far. This month Bitcoin has reached a $69,000 mark; Axie Infinity tokens were worth $0,18 at the end of 2021 but then their value has increased to $150+. The earliest and most patient investors could fix a profit of over 800Xs.
Axie Infinity became a real icon for the industry of collection card games in the Web3 technology in NFT and managed to produce interesting stories. It is remarkable that the majority of Axie Infinity players were from the Philippines and then we could spot a tendency of hiring special workers who will spend their time on the game to earn AXS and sell it on the market.
The idea of Axie Infinity is amazingly simple. Players have to grow pets and ten fight with each other to gain prizes and monetary awards in AXS that could later be exchanged for real dollars on the cryptocurrency market or swap them for products. The game proved that the NFT industry can be perfect for collecting card games while NFTs are actually based on the idea that is the core of such games — collecting items, sales and further usage.
Card collection games used to work as board games before the appearance of technology and have had a chance to conquer the hearts of many players in a very long time. Consequently, the development of technology enabled these games to appear on computers and now the next logical step in the sphere is the Web3 technology and NFTs.
Axie Infinity is not the only card game based on the Web3 technology, but undoubtedly, it is the most successful.
Creators of Dungeons & Dragons do not want to go deeper into the NFT gaming
However, not all developers and publishers of collection card games see the profit in the sector of digital assets. For instance, it has been reported recently that Wizards of the Coast, who publish the legendary Dungeon & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering, decided to stay away from all of this.
The mentioned projects would become a perfect fit for a collection card game in the Web3 technology by its nature, however, fans of these board games that are excited about digital assets will have to deal with it. Creators of the board games are not going to work on other questions that are related to Web3 technologies even if these are metaverses or anything else.
The creator of D&D, Wizards of the Coast, has already thought about something similar, however, now he reported that some planned changes of the license that influence the fan content will be called off. Now they are working on a set of rules that will give an accurate explanation about the situations when fans can make D&D production and when they cannot.
The points in the license are already being changed and the copyright will be updated. Any content in Web3 (for example, NFTs or metaverses) will be banned and fans will not be able to create collections based on Dungeons & Dragons.
Wizards of the Coast shared their plans to update the Dungeon & Dragons Open Game License last year. Then they let their fans and different organizations sell works inspired by the board game. Then one of the updates was NFTs that were based on Dungeon & Dragons.
Representatives of the company wrote in December 2022 that they would permit release of the D&D production because they like the game and they want the fan community helped them to develop the universe. Nevertheless, publishers of Dungeons & Dragons want people to share their art and not the monetisation called D&D.
Over the last few years the fan content that was based on Dungeons & Dragons became really popular and there are even series, podcasts and novels that are based on D&D.
It’s noteworthy that fan projects based on D&D have already started to be created in the Web3 technology and the creators have already reacted to it at once. Afterwards, Wizards of the Coast decided to change the set of rules in the open license to prohibit creation of such content.
Fans of the board game found some downsides in the new rules that had been introduced by Wizards of the Coast. According to them, the update of Open Game License interferes with earning money and worsen the position of the business where they get funds from fans. These are the problems that the creators of the board game want to tackle to prevent ordinary people from earning money from a brand that has been built for years.
According to Wizards of the Coast, one of the main principles in the new restrictions is negation of opportunities of the Web3 technology. Their statement could lead us to an inference that the creator is not going to reconsider their strategy in the future. They are against monetisation of the idea of Dungeons & Dragons in terms of NFTs and other ways.
Brian David Goldner, who is a general manager of the Hasbro company that is known for producing toys for children and owning numerous affiliated studios, has said that the creator of the board game can gain new opportunities in the NFT. According to Goldner, Wizards of the Coast could get a lot of profit from joining the world of NFTs, however, the creators of Dungeon & Dragons did not want to go for anything like that.
Link between board games and NFT gaming
As we can notice, NFT gaming and board games can make friends and level up the competitive process between players. It has both advantages and disadvantages. Some of the positives are technical opportunities that enable players to spend time with each other and compete in the digital world if there is no chance to meet at a table in the real world.
It used to be possible in the Web2 technology, however, with the emergence of NFT gaming, we can notice appearance of a commercial point in such kinds of entertainment. Apart from players being able to play board games of collection card games in the NFT format, they will also be able to earn money from it. This is the principle of Play2Earn games — play to earn.
One of the negatives is the fact that online games will never replace games in real life. Gathering together with your friends in one place to have a Dungeon & Dragons party is not the same as playing such games in the NFT format.
Another negative factor is a positive factor at the same time — a chance to earn money. Even the idea of earning money playing game attracts users, however, if a player does not want to enjoy the game but wants to earn money, they lose the main feature of the game.
Therefore, the process that is aimed at entertainment and stress relief may turn into routine and lose the fun element, stressing gamers out.
Collection card games might switch to the Web3 technology, however, it can take some time.
But now the audience is not ready to fully accept this model of spending time on such games that could bring some profit. We could see it when Artifact by Valve was released in 2018. The project that was based on the Dota 2 universe was going to let players spend time with pleasure but also earn money, selling cards. Consequently, many players sold their stuff to get get back their money that they had spent on presales and stopped playing the game. Eventually, Artifact became a smudge in the history of Valve’s existence.
On the other hand, there is a more successful example of the genre — Hearthstone by Blizzard. From the very beginning, the game became very popular thanks to the fact that it could be played on computers and smartphones. The crossplay function also made a great contribution. However, unlike Artifact, in this project users were to buy sets and hope that it would bring them the cards that they wanted. Artifact gave a chance to it’s users to buy the cards they needed. Besides, Hearthstone atwood out in comparison to his competitor with the help of its esports element and thorough attention to the competitive process but not the moment of card trading.
Both Artifact and Hearthstone, and even the computer version of Magic: The Gathering do not have anything to do with Web3 technologies and NFT gaming, so in a way they are not really great examples in the context of the topic we are looking into. Nevertheless, looking at success and failure of these projects will help us notice how some users reacts to games that could be considered one of the subgroups of board games.
Bogdan Lashchenko – content manager at EgamersWorld.Bogdan has been working at EGamersWorld since 2023. Joining the company, he began fillin the site with information, news and events.