2023 NFT gaming wish list 🎮

Metaversal is one Bankless newsletter for weekly levels on NFTs, virtual worlds and collectibles

Dear Bankless Nation,

Happy New Year 🎉

There is no doubt that as we look ahead, many talking heads in the crypto space, myself included, believe that the NFT gaming ecosystem is in for a big 2023.

But what are the kinds of things we want to see in this ecosystem for this big year to come to fruition?

To that end, I’ve put together a wish list — 8 rising themes in the NFT gaming sector that I (and maybe soon you too) want to see more of in 2023. Let’s dive in!

-WMP

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One reason why people love games so much? They allow us to test and hone our skills.

Nowhere is this more true than in multi-player games depth, i.e. they offer a rich selection of tactical and strategic game possibilities. Everything from chess to Hearthstone are examples here.

The NFT gaming ecosystem is growing faster than ever now, but to date many of the early titles have felt “flat” by lacking much to do and thus offering players little in the way of skill tests. A project working in the right direction here right now is Axie Infinity.

In April 2022, the Axie creators unveiled Sky Mavis Axie Infinity: Origins, an optimized version of their original tactical card battle game that introduced card updates, a charm and rune crafting system, and real-time combat. As you can see from the tweet above, these new items allow players to enjoy one a lot of depth with unique, tailored playstyles.

Of course, Axie Infinity: Origins is still a work in progress in its own right, but I hope to see more projects follow its lead in “going deep” in 2023. If you’re interested in learning more about this game in particular, check out its basic in this Sky Mavis guide.

A decent smartphone is less expensive than a computer or game console, so mobile games are great for accessibility.

One thing I always liked about Axie Infinity was how you could play it on Android devices (with iOS support coming soon too), and there’s no doubt we’ll be seeing more NFT games emulating this approach going forward as mobile Gaming activity is constantly rising to new heights.

A project I’m looking at on this front right now is Treeverse.

A mobile MMORPG built on Ethereum and led by Endless clouds and Loopify, Treeverse is currently in limited pre-alpha testing. However, the early videos from this testing reveal a game that not only looks nice, but also looks downright fun in my opinion.

Bringing fun to more people and more people to the empowering applications of crypto is the flagship of mobile NFT gaming. I’m very interested to see how Treeverse and other mobile titles like it evolve accordingly.

As such, a new NFT game is showing how to offer throttle-free UX The Pirate Nation, a chained adventure game built on Polygon. The project uses a game wallet system which allows Pirate Nation to cover behind-the-scenes transactions so players don’t have to pay for gas or sign any transactions mid-game.

Here’s hoping other web3 games start experimenting with this superior UX approach too!

Arbitrum has been the largest and most popular layer-two (L2) Ethereum scaling solution for some time now.

Of course, affordable and fast infra is ideal for NFT gaming. This reality, combined with all the advancements yet to come for Arbitrum, makes this L2 fertile ground for a web3 gaming boom.

In addition, projects such as Tax DAO has already done a lot to bring the foundations of a teeming NFT scene to Arbitrum, so the fun looks like it’s just getting started here. It is literal true for a title that The Beacon, a free-to-play RPG that just had an explosive launch and is poised to bring significant activity to Arbitrum going forward. This is just a taste of what’s to come for this L2, I think.

The thrill of competition, the glory of skilled victories, the rewards of achievements and rewards, and the sense of belonging to a community of passionate peers. These are the reasons why players find tournaments so exciting.

So when it comes to NFT games, tournaments are certainly a great way to offer players fun and compelling experiences on a rolling basis, and I’d like to see more of them accordingly.

A project that I believe is reaching the tournament approach at the moment Sorare: NBA, which allows players to build fantasy decks and then register for a variety of different contests whenever they wish. Yes please!

Sometimes when NFT games release updates, the game creators will temporarily pause the contract(s) and players will have to liquidate or migrate their game assets. This is not good UX, is it.

A game that tackles this problem right now is Crushed EONwhich will be launched in April 2023. It does so with the flexible and modular Diamond standard smart contract approach that allows NFT games (among other use cases) to easily extend and update their projects. I’m all for seeing more of this hands-on approach in the space.

By “on-chain game engine” I mean a series of smart contracts created to run a game’s backend indefinitely on a blockchain like Ethereum.

On-chain game engines are interesting because they allow third-party creators to openly build new experiences around and on top of NFT games. This dynamic paves the way for modding, which in turn allows players to actively choose how they want to enjoy and experience their choices.

There has been a lot of interesting work on this front recently. For example, we have seen in recent months Curio, Gridand Adam Cochran introducing new on-chain game engines. This is the flowering of a new field, and the possibilities are wide open here at the moment.

Virtually all NFT games to date have embraced ERC20 tokens in one way or another.

The most popular approaches we’ve seen so far have been around single-token or dual-token models. The latter distributes governance and utility cases across separate ERC20s, while the former tries to handle all its needs with just one token.

Both of these approaches can face major problems, as 0xKepler, one of the great minds in web3 gaming in my opinion, presents excellently in this thread:

As a way to avoid these problems, 0xKepler suggests the creation of a model without token which will rely on “off-chain currency + NFTs for value addition.”

The idea is that players can “mint NFTs against their off-chain currency”, which would curb direct fiat exchange and thus reduce the economic motivations that can ruin an NFT game when unchecked. I think this is a fascinating approach that could lead to more fun and balanced games. I will be interested to see if we start to see more projects put this strategy into practice, because we definitely need more experimentation in this regard.

If you’re interested in NFTs and are also a gamer, it’s an incredibly exciting time to be on the ground in the NFT ecosystem.

The NFT gaming scene is still quite primordial, yes, but observing here one gets the sense that a corner is being turned. Important progress is being made. Where once there were just a few simple NFT game bets, now there are many such titles in various stages of development and with varying levels of complexity.

In fact, the possibilities and technology are opening up. The game gets richer, the user experience gets better, our collective infrastructure and collective knowledge gets better in all directions. We are still far from solving everything in this sector that’s for sure, but my hope and forecast as an avid player and NFTer is that we will see no shortage of NFT gaming projects continuing to make significant progress in 2023!

• 🕹️ Track and try out interesting games on the NFT border like Axie Infinity Origins, Treeverse, Pirate Nation, The Beacon, Sorare: NBAand beyond

• 🗓️ Follow my NFT highlights from 2022 if you missed it over the holidays!

William M. Peaster is a professional writer and creator of Metaversal– a bankless newsletter focused on the rise of NFTs in the crypto-economy. He has also recently contributed content to Bankless, JPG and more!

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Not financial or tax advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell assets or make financial decisions. This newsletter is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.

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