Origin of Species will change the mind about NFT games
NFT games, although probably a new aspect in blockchain gaming, can no longer be considered a niche, but an established part of games built on blockchain.
With the ability to earn being a big draw for players, NFT games have attracted a large number of new players. At one point in 2021, there were game streamers posting earnings in the thousands of dollars every week due to their participation in these NFT games.
Of course, given that most of these games were launched during the bull market, their token prices had risen and so had the earnings of players. But these NFT plays are now being put to the test as the crypto market has entered another inevitable bear market.
As prices have collapsed, so has interest from players. A large number of games that had been popular due to their rising token prices are now suffering in the bear market. Even major players like Axie Infinity have seen interest drop considerably during this time. This has required more innovation and less focus on token prices when it comes to NFT games. That is if these games plan to survive the current bear market.
Token price should not be the focus
One problem with existing blockchain games is the fact that the value of the entire gaming ecosystem depends solely on how their token prices do. When the price of their tokens rises, they see a lot of interest, but any decline causes players to leave in large numbers. It is clear that such a model is unsustainable, and some industry experts have even referred to the current models as being akin to Ponzi schemes that need a steady stream of new entrants to keep it going.
Using such models only attracts players who only care about the price of the tokens they earn. The result of this is the mass exodus that has taken place in the gaming sector as crypto has welcomed another bear market.
A new player in the space has taken the initiative to tackle the problems currently plaguing the NFT gaming space. Cradles: Origin of Species is a blockchain game that focuses on innovation and community rather than token price. This game promises to bring NFT games with never-before-seen capabilities in an effort to transcend the questionable models used by existing blockchain games.
How Cradles differentiates itself
Cradles: Origin of Species focuses on innovation to keep the community engaged and interested rather than token price. With a gamer-first approach, the creators introduce new metaverse gaming experiences. These range from popular aspects of the play-2-earn ecosystem to new metaverse features that make it more than just a virtual reality gaming experience. One of the innovations from the Cradles: Origin of Species team has been the introduction of the EIP-3664 proposal for a new type of NFT.
It follows in the footsteps of ERC-20 by introducing revolutionary features when it comes to how tokens are created. Unlike ERC-721 or other token standards currently used for NFTs, EIP-3664 contains several new attributes that allow for different types of fungible and non-fungible aspects. Players can add and remove components to and from their NFTs, as well as give them new properties, which will enable continuous and dynamic gameplay, unlike traditional NFTs, whose properties are preset and cannot be changed.
Props, characters and operating modes of games using EIP-3664 can be fully represented as smart contracts. This promotes diverse gameplay and expands the types of NFTs on the Ethereum network to provide a stronger and more diverse gaming experience.
Play and earn, don’t play to earn
Cradle’s gamer-first strategy has seen it move away from the traditional play-to-earn model and bring players towards the new world of games and pay. This helps shift the focus of players from the price of the token earned in the game to playing the game for pure enjoyment. In this way, tokens earned by players are merely an additional incentive to play as they progress through the game, not the core motivator for playing.
It is also the first subscription-based game to grace the blockchain gaming space. This allows all players to immediately access the game without having to purchase expensive NFTs beforehand. By purchasing a monthly pass, users can play and earn in Cradles for that entire month.
The game also has zero transaction fees for small transactions. These are transactions that occur between players and peer-to-peer transactions. For transactions involving more valuable items, there is a small fee.
Investment in NFTs
As already mentioned, Cradles: Origin of Species players do not need to make a significant initial investment before playing Cradles. Another invention that makes this possible is the Staking Into NFTs (SIN) feature in the game.
This allows users to bet on the NFTs already held by their favorite steamer or professional player. So if a player doesn’t have access to a powerful weapon in the game and a streamer does, they can stake their tokens into the streamer’s NFT to increase the power of the weapon. This gives the streamer an edge over their opponents to help them claim victory and win the prizes, which are split between the streamer and those who bet on the NFT.
All the in-game elements in Cradles: Origin of Species are also created by the players. There are no external NFTs sold before entering the game, and players can freely move and trade items with each other thanks to a completely decentralized item supply.
Cradles recently raised $5 million in a private funding round to build out its metaverse. The game is backed by some of the biggest players in the space, including Animoca Brands, Signum Capital and Huobi Global, among others.
The innovation behind Cradles: Origin of Species is what sets it ahead of all other blockchain games. By successfully delinking the value of the game from the token price, it ensures that the community is always involved regardless of whether the price of the token goes up or down. A complete game that kickstarts the development of the metaverse.
