WTF is a NFT and Why is it Best For ND?
Neon District is the upcoming RPG from Blockade Games. Powered by Non-Fungible Token Standard; ERC-721, players will be able to view and trade their unique user and character data on Blockchain.
In recent months, the term “NFT” or “Non-Fungible Token” has surely been talked about as much as Blockchain itself. A quick search for “Non-Fungible Token” on Google Trends shows th—
Okay, it shows nothing. Absolutely sweet FA.
As much as it would be cool to spit out some comparative data on NFTs and prove they’ve been googled more times than “Jesus,” they’re just honestly not considered that sexy yet. There does seem to be a bit of a buzz surrounding them as their use cases expand, but NFTs are commonly misunderstood or overlooked.
To simplify things, let’s consider fungible goods or tokens first, so we can understand their counterpart a little more. Fungible goods are intended to be interchangeable or replaceable by another identical asset. Bitcoin (BTC) can be considered fungible, since each BTC holds the same store of value as any other.
Take this example- Tammy and Billy have developed a relationship as online gaming friends. Along the way, Tammy has just introduced Billy to the world of Blockchain, helping him buy his first BTC. Now Tammy owns 3 Bitcoins and Billy owns 3 Bitcoins. Tammy has also offered to teach Billy to transfer his newly acquired BTC, in case he ever needs to in the future. She suggests they send their 3 BTC to each other as a demonstration. Tammy even offers to transfer her 3 BTC first, and sends a link to the transaction. After opening the link and seeing the 3 Bitcoins on their way to his public address, Billy sends through his 3 BTC in return, satisfied they will each then still hold 3 Bitcoins of equal value. (Unfortunately, in this particular case, Tammy scammed Billy. She sent testnet tokens and a link to a testnet block explorer to Billy. Poor Billy sent his mainnet BTC and is now working at McDonald's, while Tammy has 6 BTC and is still binge gaming from home with a big smile on her face, allegedly trying to dupe more unsuspecting n00bs, like n00billy. Stay #SAFU out there kids. Ahem. Moving on.)
In their most basic form, Non-Fungible Tokens are the opposite of Fungible Tokens; NFTs are not designed to be directly interchangeable. They can be governed by a single smart contract, but each token in that contract has a unique identifier that individuals or projects can assign variable data against. This means that even if two users own the same number of tokens each, within a smart contract, their tokens may hold different intrinsic or cumulative values based on the unique information stored against them.
Another example- Two gamers are each trying to level up and enhance their Alchemists on Neon District, in preparation for an attack on The Mainspring. Tammy’s Alchemist is Level 5, with 3 enhancements and 2 weapons, after 70 hours of gameplay. While Billy’s Alchemist is Level 14, with 11 enhancements and 8 weapons, after 255 hours of gameplay. Although each of their characters will have its data stored against the same allocation of Neon District’s Non-Fungible Tokens, Billy’s Alchemist is far more experienced than Tammy’s, so the tokens with his character data stored against them are likely to be more valuable to him and to other gamers. (There’s no way Billy would want to trade his enhanced Alchemist or his collection of weapons for Tammy’s. Although word on Discord is, Billy will consider the swap if Tammy returns his 3 BTC.)
For gaming projects like Neon District, Non-Fungible Tokens provide the ability to store and transfer decentralized information associated with each player’s progress, character experience, weapon stats, enhancements, and numerous other data points. This variable data is applied to a token or a set of tokens within the associated smart contract, meaning all users can have the same blank canvas starting point, but they can increase the value and/or uniqueness of their associated tokens based on their gameplay. The decisions that players make and the amount of time they commit to developing their characters, as well as the skills they possess, will all be reflected on Ethereum’s Blockchain.
This ability to store information against a token or set of tokens also presents an opportunity for gaming projects to estimate the smart contract’s supply requirements. A user base forecast can prevent hyperinflation of tokens and provide players the same entry level position, without the need to purchase an arbitrary number of tokens to get started. Players could then spend their hard-eared money elsewhere — Some Red Bull to fuel the next all-nighter, perhaps.
Starting to sound sexy now? “Ooh Aah, just a little bit!”
Further Reading. For an in-depth exploration of the technical aspects of ERC-721 NFTs and some suggested uses of these, additional information can be found here on Ethereum’s GitHub.
Trigger Warning!! “Not actual gameplay”. For the highly passionate and attentive Neon District enthusiasts out there, please note that there may be some variances between the use of ND’s NFTs when comparing actual gameplay to the scenario described in this article. This is only a hypothetical, posed to explain how NFTs can be used in Gaming.
More from Blockade Games & Neon District
Writer’s note.
I generally share my Medium stories to my Facebook news feed without thinking twice, but I’ll have to be somewhat cautious with this one. If my mother sees that I’ve published “sexy” and “Jesus” in the same sentence, she’ll surely kill me.
Actually, she’d be breaking the 6th commandment; “thou shalt not kill”.
So mother dearest, if you do somehow see this piece, just because I‘m borderline breaking the 3rd and 5th here, it doesn’t mean you get to break the 6th! ❤
Chris Tannahill — Writer @ Blockade Games
