Your digital pet
Some of you may remember Tamagotchi:
Released in Japan in 1996, this device with a digital pet you have to care for became an instant global sensation with over 82mn units sold. Despite its basic interface and poor graphics it formed a sense of attachment to these pixels.
What would happen if we were to take the concept of growing / designing your own pet, an ability to create a unique one (and you can prove it’s only yours - like CryptoKitties) and an ability for them to battle? The answer would look something like this:
You might be as surprised as he is…
A video game called Axie Infinity was released last year and every month 19,000 active gamers buy and nurture these beasts, trade body parts and special abilities:
If that wasn’t enough, these axies live in a virtual world and gamers are able to own the land in that world, often paying non-trivial money for it.
As per usual, it looks and sounds crazy and may be dismissed as a fad. How and or why is this important? As it usually happens in crypto, the answer lies in the economics.
Play to earn
The catch is that to grow their beasts, gamers need a special ‘potion’ which they can buy or simply earn by playing the game. Despite being an in-game feature it actually trades on crypto exchanges like any other coin:
What this means is that as long as there are gamers who would like to play this game, this ‘commodity’ will have demand and therefore a market price. Thus it’s going to be viable for someone to just play the game, earn this ‘potion’ and sell it. In some lower-income parts of the world, following this model already generates more income than traditional local opportunities.
This isn’t a brand new idea - the World of Warcraft game (~5mn players) allows gamers to earn gold by completing quests and then sell it for real world cash. Applying the same concept to crypto, however, can take it to a whole new level due to it all being part of the same open ecosystem.
Perhaps one day parents won’t be able to tell their kids that playing video games won’t put bread on the table…
Is this just fantasy?
I’m sure when Queen asked this question in “Bohemian Rhapsody” they had some deeper questions in mind.
These days fantasy is not a concept anymore - it’s a business. In the US alone 60mn people play Fantasy Football. They buy and trade cards of their favourite players and organise imaginary matches.
Before you roll your eyes I should probably mention it’s a $7.2bn industry.
Naturally blockchain makes everything better and the team behind Sorare decided to replicate this process on blockchain. They partnered up with 126 football clubs and now fans of this sport can enjoy the digital experience with proof of ownership, positive economic loops and freely and efficiently tradable game items.
For the clubs it’s another great way to monetise their brand and engage their fan base.
A similar product was developed by Dapper Labs - the team behind CryptoKitties - they partnered up with NBA to allow basketball fans to buy collectible cards with their favourite players and teams.
Apart from having the ‘collectibles’ soft value, this may end up being a great way to ‘invest’ into the sports careers as it’s reasonable to expect the market value of these (unique) cards to fluctuate depending on the fame / success of a specific player.
The only platform that allows all these gaming features and economic loops to be combined together is crypto and we can definitely expect more innovation to happen there.