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A recent startup has shown how blockchain development entities and traditional gaming companies are joining to transform the industry.
Forte, based in the U.S., recently announced it secured $725 million in a Series B fundraising round.
As interesting as the news itself, was the list of those behind the initiative. It includes some third generation blockchains focused on competing with Ethereum in gaming and NFTs, as well as familiar names in the gaming world, including:
- Solana Ventures
- Polygon Studios
- Cosmos
- Animoca Brands
- Warner Music Group
- Tiger Global
Sea Capital and Kora Management led the investment round, according to TheBlockCrypto.com.
Forte is being launched to help game developers in adding innovations associated with blockchain gaming, including “play to earn” where players have the opportunity to earn crypto tokens in the course of gameplay, and NFTs, digital objects which have definitive one-of-a kind digital pedigree and ownership, which act as assets needed for gameplay.
Axie Infinity, a blockchain based game which has made a huge mark in 2021 for exemplifying the revenue and reward models of blockchain gaming, saw a meteoric rise in the value of its network token, AXIE (see “METAVERSE GAMING HITS BILLION DOLLAR PAYDIRT WITH AXIE INFINITY,” 25 Oct 2021).
Though the Ethereum network has a huge lead in adoption for many decentralized software projects, other blockchains have seen opportunities due to Ethereum’s technical issues with scaling, including transaction times and “gas” fees (the amount of Ether) associated with deploying projects and using the network.
That has opened the door to other blockchains which don’t have Ethereum’s user or network base, but which have technologies that currently outstrip Ethereum in terms of scalability and overall technology.
Solana, Polkadot, Binance Smart Chain, Polygon, Avalanche, the Near Network and others are all competing with projects and partnerships.
In September, Hedera, one of the fastest and purportedly greenest DLTs (Distributed Ledger Technologies), announced the ability for anyone to issue NFTs using its layer 1 network technology.
It’s significant because Hedera touts transaction costs that are stable and not given to fluctuation based on network usage, unlike Ethereum and some other networks.
NFTs Revolutionizing Gaming and Beyond
NFTs are becoming a core feature of blockchain gaming, but are set to impact every industry, according to Hedera developer Waylon Jepson:
“NFT stands for non-fungible token. The word fungible essentially means replaceable or interchangeable — NFT’s are not interchangeable, nor are they replaceable. An NFT has a unique cryptographic signature as proof of its authenticity. Additional information is retained in the NFT, like the account ID of its creator and metadata associated with it. This is so people can store all sorts of digital information in the metadata, and you would be able to verify that the account ID matched that of the creator of the work.”
In blockchain games, owners of NFT assets can use them in gameplay, or rent out assets to other gamers.
NFTs might cost a considerable amount of money to purchase. For example, this past February, somebody known as ‘Flying Falcon’ purchased a digital land parcel in Axie Infinity for 888 ETH. The value of the ETH at the time was 1.5 million dollars, a record for that kind of purchase.
Investors often purchase NFTs associated with a promising or established game, in order to turn a profit by renting the NFT to skilled gamers who can earn enough tokens to pay for the rental and turn a profit.
Because NFTs can establish ownership or partial ownership of practically any digital or real world asset, they are already being used to do things like provide ownership rights to songs, which can help artists in raising money to produce their next album, for example.
The Trends Journal has been covering various ways that blockchain technologies like NFTs are changing paradigms and creating value in articles including “TIPPING POINT: AWARENESS” (22 Jun 2021), “ONE OF A KIND: THE WORLD OF NFTs” (10 Aug 2021) and “THE CRYPTO ‘AGE OF UTILITY’ HAS JUST BEGUN” (12 Oct 2021).