How will NFTs bridge the gap between traditional gaming and blockchain? Enjin’s CTO Witek Radomski explains

by · August 5, 2022

When it comes to non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, the topic is often a hit or miss for traditional players. While some players welcome the idea of ​​being able to trade in-game digital collectibles for real money, others lament that NFTs could potentially take away from the inherent entertainment built into games. So can NFTs contribute any added value to traditional games, other than turning them into “moneymakers” that you can play to earn?

To answer this, Cointelegraph Markets Pro spoke with Enjin’s CTO and co-founder Witek Radomski via an ask-me-anything session. Enjin offers a comprehensive suite of products to create, tokenize, trade, distribute and integrate NFTs into the virtual world of GameFi. Notable projects using the service include Lost Relic. In addition, Microsoft Azure is working with Enjin to enhance their developer experience with Azure Heroes NFTs. When asked about the future of GameFi, Radomski explained that it’s hard to build a good-looking game that’s also fun to play, and it’s even harder to build a community around a game that sticks:

“We will see a renaissance of blockchain gaming as things settle down with the bear market and more established developers focus on fun games, NFT utility and thinking beyond just earning crypto coins through playing a game.”

Radomski is a big believer in using NFTs to gamify businesses. “Anywhere you can give users access, special experiences or exclusivity, NFTs are fantastic. Almost everyone on the web is creating some kind of digital content these days, and easy-to-use NFTs can help people give history, ownership, digital rights and benefit to all that is created.” Radomski elaborated that NFTs fit specifically into this niche as game developers are constantly creating insanely cool games and content and need a way to present their idea to players that is immutable. In addition, he emphasized their role in validating one’s digital identity in the face of a looming impersonation crisis:

“In a couple of years, robots can perfectly deepfake any human or artwork. Artists, designers and musicians may have identity crises where celebrities, politicians, game streamers and eventually ordinary people will be constantly deceived by them. If you value your digital identity, your awareness and your validity in the new society, the blockchain is the only thing that can both prove that you have created something.”

To bridge the utility gap, Enjin is creating a complete end-to-end platform for building and using NFTs. Game developers have to have their own blockchain development team that pumps in months or years of effort to develop an NFT solution without such a platform. By building on Enjin, they can directly access middleware and backend APIs, wallets, an internal marketplace, and a blockchain (Efinity) built for user experience with NFTs.

As for the ecosystem, Enjin’s namesake can also be invested in NFTs on Ethereum. Its decentralized cross-chain network for NFTs, called Efinity, is built on Polkadot (DOT). It is designed for game optimization and the capacity to create and distribute potentially millions of NFTs. The overall Enjin community of users and developers has grown significantly over the years, with 150,000 Enjin Coin wallet addresses alone.

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