Within almost every video game, especially within interactive and multi-player gaming worlds, trading items is a quintessential part of the gaming experience. It is part of growing, leveling up, and refining your expertise, but the problem still remains that you don’t actually own the items. If the developers want, they can remove or replicate your item with the click of a button, removing it or flooding the market and making it effectively meaningless.
This is where NFTs come in, allowing users to have complete ownership over verifiably unique in-game items. Like traditional gaming in role-playing games (RPGs), you can easily trade with other gamers, but now you can realize the value of the items you are exchanging. With peer-to-peer NFT trading, gamers can elevate their hobby to a new level.
Capturing Value
Peer-to-peer trading is the ability to trade without the necessity of an intermediary, which was previously impossible through the online realm before the introduction of blockchain technology. Now, anyone can conduct transactions with whomever they wish, all through a fluid trading process that only involves the parties within the trade. With swaps, this is done off-chain with no transaction fee, making the trade as seamless and easy to execute as possible.
This presents a massive opportunity for gamers, as there is now a genuine open market where gamers can realize the tangible value of their items. This feature will take place throughout a gamer’s entire experience online. We should understate the value these types of transactions can generate.
Imagine you have been spending months building up your character in order to complete a quest, and now you only need one more rare in-game item to qualify and begin. Instead of playing for innumerable more hours to earn the qualifying item, you can simply buy it or trade for it in an open market with another player. You can trade a variety of digital items you own, all with a uniquely identifiable value, in exchange for the item you require, or you could simply offer the seller a price they cannot refuse. With peer-to-peer NFT swaps, users can navigate a gaming world in a much more straightforward way, conducting transactions in a manner that mimics the real world.
We can also see the value of swaps through games like CSGO, where users are always buying, selling, and earning new guns and skins. If you have multiple of a single item or are looking to diversify, peer-to-peer NFT swaps make the transaction easy and leave the entire value of the transaction within the hands of the gamers making the trade. On top of that, swaps mean no transaction fees have to be wasted on the exchange, optimizing the outcome for both trading parties.
Digital Self Sovereignty
We already began to touch upon this theme above, but peer-to-peer trading gives gamers total dominion over their assets for the first time in history. No longer do users have to abide by arbitrary rules or standards imposed by the game development and management teams, empowering end users to operate as they wish.
This definitive asset control is also demonstrated through peer-to-peer swaps, as it’s entirely up to the users on how they wish to use their assets. Even if the in-game asset is worth millions, they have the option to give it away for free, transfer it in a trade, or straight up sell it to realize its value immediately. With NFT swaps, the possibilities are literally endless and go as far as any gamer is willing to push them. These swaps put creativity and value at the forefront, rewarding gamers in a format that many wish was implemented earlier.
The Future of Gaming
When you begin to understand the full scope that in-game NFT swaps provide, it becomes more and more evident that they will play a significant role in the gaming industry moving forward. These swaps finally allow players to easily control and monetize their assets, turning a hobby into a side hustle or potential income-generating circumstance.
Although this may make some games more transactional than entirely based on the fun of the game, these swapping qualities have the power to truly give authority to gamers. With asset control comes more power and decision-making possibilities, strengthening and broadening gaming ecosystems and the gamers playing within them.
