Written by Adrian Krion
Translator 丨 Zhu Gang
Planner 丨 Sun Shujuan
Non-homogeneous tokens (NFTs) are making great strides in the gaming world, and one of the keys to NFT fans' admiration is interoperability, which is a major benefit for gamers. Because NFTs are in a public database, collaboration can be viewed by anyone and games. So, with some standardization, the entire industry can become a metacosm of transferable entertainment experiences? But the reality is not so simple, and there are other obstacles to interoperability waiting.
First of all, whether it's the sword that kills the gods, or the fastest ship in the galaxy, NFT confirms the items you have purchased, and then confirms the ownership of the in-game items. As a rightful owner, you are free to sell (or rent out) tokens at any time without fear of being banned, and OTC projects in non-blockchain games may not necessarily be allowed. However, the fact that non-blockchain games also shows that the ownership and transfer of in-game assets does not need to be handled by NFTs.
At this time, there will be a problem of professional and technical thresholds. The sword or ship itself is a collection of digital assets such as 3D models and animations that are stored either on your device or on the game's server as part of a client application file, depending on the chosen network architecture. Non-blockchain games themselves track ownership of these ship or sword instances, however NFT games can do this by talking to the blockchain. Blockchain is a decentralized database that is not controlled by game developers and is open to anyone.
In either case, if the game is subdued, the sword or spaceship will basically say goodbye to their proud owner once and for all. The game is completely over, the spaceship has nowhere to fly, and the sword is useless. From The Matrix Online to Star Wars Galaxies, many once-promising massively multiplayer online games (CMOs) have gone to the same fate. For NFT games, however, the legend may continue, and interoperability can turn the tide.
Task: Interoperability
But the games failed to reverse their fate, and the problem was semantics. The third-party database in which the token resides is indeed open, but that doesn't mean that the object it represents can be transferred to any other game at the snap of a finger, even assuming that assets such as visuals and items (such as speed, armor, or number of onboard laser cannons) of the object can be viewed and imported by anyone.
The first aspect boils down to the problem of implementing objects in one game in another. In the case of a spaceship, how can its props work in a game like Happy Farm? There are no space battles involved in games like Happy Farm, and spaceships are not coded, so games like Happy Farm can't handle them.
However, this problem can be solved through some collaborative design and creative thinking. While the original graphics asset may not be transferable, developers can use a generic graphics asset to represent NFTs from other games. The value of an NFT in gameplay can be preserved, at least to some extent, even if it is imported into a game that does not support its original props and features. To achieve this, it is possible to give the game new items and features that are inherent in the import game itself, and this process will be done through a random generator, taking into account the rarity of the original token. In this way, the spaceship that used to fly at the speed of light will now become a horse running at the speed of light, or a dwarf in the garden who lets crops grow at five times the speed.
With this design, if we buy an NFT spaceship in a space combat game but later level it up, our NFT value can still be retained by importing it into any other game in the larger ecosystem. In practice, NFTs still have to be invested in specific games to activate, otherwise each token will bring too much net income to its holders, dividing up the revenue of all the games that support it.
So we have to face another big problem. If game developers want users to acquire assets in their game, why allow players to use assets from other games? This problem is also very common in non-NFT games, such as Sony's defiance of most other multiplayer games on Fortnite and PS4. NFTs are a technology that is indeed very good for interoperability, but its own economic interests remain a real obstacle to achieving this goal.
Any project that released the original NFT would benefit from the additional functionality that came with it if it had the ability to use it in other projects. But what can these other projects get out of it? They also want to sell their own NFTs rather than integrate third-party collections. One possible way to solve this problem is to use a referral program in which Project A promotes NFTs integrated from Project B to capture Project B's sales revenue in that channel and royalty share in subsequent resale. Mutual integration is another possible option for projects of comparable size that can benefit by leveraging each other's user base. As another option, projects can set up a pool of integration rewards that reward revenue from their own and are automatically shared between co-op games based on the size of their audience or the sales in the integration.
Cross-rollouts may provide another great incentive for developers to build such solutions, from indie games to AAA blockbusters, which are also very effective in non-NFT games. Fortnite survives online across platforms, Daylight is almost a horror metaverse in this respect, and Monster Hunter: World introduces the classic Geralt of the Witcher series. When creators brainstorm, there will indeed be magic happening.
NFT technology is designed to confirm ownership of digital or other assets on public and auditable databases, becoming a mainstay in truly unlocking interoperability in the gaming world. While this potential today is still hampered by business development considerations that are not tied to blockchain, in the future, we can expect to see the entire NFT gaming metacosm, giving players the freedom to transfer assets from one game to another, ultimately allowing the potential of this technology to blossom in full bloom.
Translator Introduction
Zhu Gang, 51CTO community editor, 2019 CSDN blog expert top 20, 2020 Tencent Cloud + community outstanding author, 10 years of first-line development experience, has participated in the headhunting service website architecture design, enterprise intelligent customer service and large-scale e-government system development, led the construction of a large central enterprise internal anti-leakage and electronic document security monitoring system, is currently engaged in bidding software development in BIM head enterprises.
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