By John Stefanidis. Originally published at ValueWalk.
“We have 50,000 P2E scholars without a game” – the greatest opportunity in the cryptocurrency market for 2022
As one of the fastest growing NFT gaming platforms in the world, Balthazar CEO John Stefanidis highlights the opportunity for NFT game developers that prioritize accessible P2E models.
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There’s no shortage of NFT (non-fungible) games in development, but how many of them provide balanced play-to-earn (P2E) monetisation models that are accessible to all players? As an NFT gaming platform, it’s an incredibly important question for Balthazar. One that means a lot to not just our current scholars, but the thousands waiting in the wings.
A few months ago, Playtoearn.net recorded about 200 blockchain-based games with about 80 live. These numbers have skyrocketed to 1,024 blockchain-based games in total, and 345 of which are now live.
We’re also seeing investors pouring capital into the market and game developers investing heavily into creating and innovating the video game industry, including AAA developers, such as Ubisoft – which partnered with Dogamí. The NFT gaming market is estimated to be worth US$10 billion and this is just the beginning.
At the time of writing, we have 1,500 scholars actively playing and earning in NFT games. We’re helping them increase their wealth and enjoy a new quality of life. But the reality is, we have over 50,000 additional whitelisted players on our waitlist. Think about that. We have 50,000 P2E scholars without a game to play. And that number will continue to grow, as can be evidenced by the 70,000+ gamers on Balthazar’s discord.
Yet we don’t see this as a problem. Instead, it’s an opportunity.
The Problem And Its Solution
In most instances, in order for someone to be able to participate in a P2E game, they need NFT assets to use in the game. Frequently, NFTs are out of the price range for many people. But the owners of these NFTs are often investors who don’t necessarily play the games themselves, meaning they lose the chance to get an on-going passive income stream while they HODL their valuable NFTs.
The reason scholars are so keen to be part of a guild is because they have an opportunity to earn money while playing a game, without paying for the NFT assets. It’s a relatively fun and easy way for them to make an income.
We have created an ecosystem where we invest in these NFT gaming assets as well as rent them from NFT holders, and then lend them to people in our scholarship program, essentially sharing the yield.
This Situation Is A Win-Win-Win
An NFT owner can rent their NFTs to Balthazar for scholars to play, and the in-game rewards are split and both walk away with something, as opposed to nothing. If done through a guild, not only is the revenue share often greater than in-game markets, but they become part of something more than just the experience of playing.
Our scholars love their community. You can see from our Discord where they participate in singing competitions and fan art. We recently did a Harry Potter themed tournament – a Triwizard Cup – for example. They like to chat in the community and support each other. We have game coaches sharing tips. They love contributing and they’re such a core part of the DAO, it’s important that they’re able to contribute and help build it.
That’s what a guild like Balthazar does. We bridge the gap between NFT owners and P2E games, building meaningful communities around that relationship. We do it for Axie Infinity. We do it for Thetan Arena. And we do it with Pegaxy. Three of the biggest games in the NFT space.
And we can do it for many more games. We can bring a day-one audience of genuine, whitelisted gamers that will drive a game’s economy forward by manifesting an active market.
The Future Of Gaming Is Guilds
Developers need to start looking at guilds like Balthazar as a platform they can leverage. The figures at the top of this article should be all the proof they need. Over 50,000 players – and growing – that are eager and ready to invest their time in great P2E experiences. But guilds also offer broader opportunities to developers.
Games can integrate with us and have access to both investors and games. So if you build a game and integrate it with Balthazar’s NFT gaming platform, you’ll immediately have access to 50,000+ gamers that can be deployed into your title. This gets your usability up so you can improve your game experience, and you can get more views actually transacting within the game.
On top of that, you also have access to investors, both retail and institutional, who can buy your tokens and NFTs and help provide capital to actually enable the scholars in the game.
But for that integration between a game and Balthazar to be successful, there needs to be more at play than just an engaging experience. There needs to be smartly implemented tokenomics as well.
Good Gaming Tokenomics
A good game for scholars really comes down to two things. One, how fun is the game to play? And two, how much can they earn from the game’s economics? In order for them to earn consistently, what we need is an economy that’s balanced. This means that there’s a sufficient deflationary mechanic built within the game that can balance the tokens being minted as the experience goes on.
In Axie Infinity, an example of a deflationary mechanic could be breeding. Scholars will play the game and as they win, they earn tokens which will be used and burnt. They will breed the NFTs and get more NFTs out of that. So the more sophisticated and effective the deflationary mechanic, the longer the game will last, and the more scholars can earn over longer periods of time.
Taking Guilds To The Moon
We would like to see upcoming NFT games build their experience and plan their roadmaps with guilds in mind. And to whitelist Balthazar as part of private sale initiatives so we can start the wheels turning on getting our scholars active in exciting new prospects from the outset. That’s the ultimate win-win-win for all three stakeholders.
VP of Ubisoft’s Strategic Innovations Lab, Nicholas Pouard, said recently that guilds are “the future of user acquisition” and “a new tool for user acquisition.”
“If you build a good play-to-earn experience, those guilds will come to your game, and they will boost up your ecosystem and the net effect is that you need to engage the whole economy and community.”
We’re excited by the future of NFT gaming and its impact on the world. It is revolutionising how people play games as well as building new wealth opportunities for gamers and crypto holders. It’s set to be the biggest trend in the crypto space this year and I have no doubt that we will see an even greater shift towards NFT gaming ecosystems.
About the Author
John Stefanidis is the CEO of NFT gaming platform Balthazar and one of Australia’s leading digital marketing and ecommerce experts. John has developed and scaled several businesses including digital marketing agency, Covert. As a serial entrepreneur and avid video gamer, John is passionate about the NFT gaming space.
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