Justin Kan, one of the co-founders of Twitch, has released his gaming NFT platform Fractal amidst popular demand. Fractal is an NFT gaming market that looks to take the world by storm. Consumers using the platform will buy NFTs for their favourite NFT games. It will offer a non-stop shop for gaming NFTs and play to earn opportunities.
Play to Earn Will Revolutionise Gaming
NFT gaming marketplaces like Fractal are the future of games. NFTs are a new way for games to become monetised. However, instead of monetising through predatory loot boxes or other ways to discreetly take money off consumers, NFTs are transparent due to the Blockchain and allow players to play to earn. Owning these NFTs will enable players to resell them at a higher price, meaning that players can make money while gaming.
The play to earn model is very different to the traditional gaming model. In conventional gaming, consumers buy games at a certain price, whether physical or digital copies. Usually, these games have a shelf life value and have no further value beyond their original cost.
Selling or trading in your physical copy of the game via third party stores or online is the only way to make money back on your game, but these returns are far below the original retail price. In contrast, NFTs fluctuate in price due to the nature of the market and can be resold after players no longer use them.
As a result, players can earn off playing NFT games by buying NFTs and reselling them for money, creating a constant stream of income for committed gamers who play NFT games regularly.
Scammers Plague NFTs
Although the play-to-earn model is appealing and is likely the future of games, we have yet to see how the NFT market will shape. For many, NFTs and the Metaverse are seen as fads. Likewise, the play-to-earn model has yet to take off as an effective tried and tested model for gamers to earn while playing.
However, applying the model is the least of its worries. Hackers and scammers are currently plaguing the NFT world and present a huge risk to NFT owners. Over the last few weeks, NFT wallets have been hacked on NFT platforms such as Opensea, costing consumers thousands. Likewise, on Discord, Fractals channel was hacked, costing its members considerable money. As a result, the bigger threat comes from hackers who want to make a quick buck off consumers. Therefore, without adequate security measures to protect NFT wallets on sites like Opensea, play to earn might never take off and may cost consumers in the long run.
In conclusion, for play to earn to revolutionise gaming, NFT buyers need to be protected, and hackers/scammers shut down.
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