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Concept
Blockchain game
Summary
Video games that include elements that use blockchain technologies, including cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), allow players to buy, sell, or trade in-game items with other players. The game publisher takes a fee from each transaction as a form of monetization. A subset of these games are also known as play-to-earn games because they include systems that allow players to earn cryptocurrency through gameplay. Blockchain games have existed since 2017, gaining more widespread attention from the video game industry in 2021. Several AAA publishers have expressed intent to include this technology in the future. Players, developers, and game companies have criticized the use of blockchain technology in video games for being exploitative, environmentally unsustainable, and unnecessary.
Blockchain technology, such as cryptocurrencies and NFTs, provides potential monetization routes for video games. Many live-service games offer in-game customization options, such as character skins or other in-game items, which the players can earn and trade with other players using in-game currency. Some games also allow for trading of virtual items using real-world currency, but this may be illegal in some countries where video games are seen as akin to gambling. This has led to gray market issues such as skin gambling, and so publishers typically have shied away from allowing players to earn real-world funds from games. Blockchain games typically allow players to trade in-game items for cryptocurrency, which can then be exchanged for money, which may sidestep some problems associated with gray markets due to blockchain's traceability.
The first known game to use blockchain technologies was CryptoKitties, launched by Axiom Zen in November 2017 for personal computers. A player would purchase NFTs with Ethereum cryptocurrency, each NFT consisting of a virtual pet that the player could breed with others to create offspring with combined traits as new NFTs. The game made headlines in December 2017 when one virtual pet sold for more than .
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