As the worlds of gaming—especially online gaming—and blockchains continue to evolve, we’ve seen some pretty fun new technologies emerge as the two come together. Collectibles have always been an important part of the gaming world. For years, players have pushed themselves to their limits in pursuit of high scores, special player skins, weapon skins, collectible cards, themes and more. For years, players would grind for hours on end in order to build up an account in online MMORPGs just to sell them.
Now, these systems are coming together in the world of blockchain, and in many ways, we might have seen this coming (1). One of the most exciting and novel new incarnations of online gaming and blockchain technology are NFT games—games specifically built on blockchain technology that allow players to compete to earn unique non-fungible tokens, or NFTs.
You might already be familiar with NFT games, and the process of earning and selling NFTs in or from games, and you might have never heard of them before now. What’s not surprising is the growing popularity in NFT games. After all, the promise of playing games to make money is one that’s drawn gamers for years; Youtubers and Twitch streamers have already long attempted to merge these two ideas—gaming and making money, with some amount of success. Now, the two have been married into games where the idea of earning money is built right into the game—no streaming required.
So, what are the best NFT games? That might depend on what you’re looking for. Some NFT games are free to play, while others cost money, and some are technically free-to-play but will require you to make an investment in the form of buying in-game tokens in order to make any money. We’ll talk about what the best NFT games might look like for different players, and some of the most exciting upcoming NFT games.
Best NFT Games To Earn Money
There’s no one-size-fits all approach to what the best NFT games are, but there are some common criteria that players might find themselves concerned with. These criteria might be the cost to play, what operating system you can play NFT games on, whether you’ll need a serious gaming rig to get started, and how much money users can expect to make for how long they’ll have to play. So what are the best games to earn money? Here’s a short list:
Axie Infinity
In Axie, creatures called “Axies” can be battled to collect more Axies, and earn some money in the meantime (2). Axie infinity does require players to spend some money to get started. You’ll need to purchase 3 Axies before getting started, so this game doesn’t quite fall under “free-to-play”
Splinterlands
Splinterlands is another wildly popular NFT game in which players can earn money (3). Splinterlands is a card trading game and it’s free to play. Like Axie infinity, players may need to spend a little money to really make any money, but it’s a far more affordable option, as the “summoner’s Book” which allows players to earn money is only 10$, and it isn’t required to just play the game.
Sunflower Farmers
Sunflower Farmers is another NFT title that gamers can earn money playing (4). Sunflower farmers is a familiar but novel reiteration of many similar NFT farming games to date. But in Sunflower farmers, the items that players farm are NFTs and they receive full ownership, so they can be sold outside the game. This will also require you to make an initial investment, but with a positive twist. Players must make a donation to start, to a charity of their choice. It’s a relatively small donation too; just .01 MATIC.
Top NFT Games
This past year, we’ve seen NFT games really emerge to the forefront. While they’re still in their infancy, some games have shone above the others, and become quite popular. Some of the top NFT games of 2021 (5) that were play-to-earn crypto have even appeared in investment websites and made a big splash in the online crypto community. While it’s hard to say what the best NFT crypto games are, since players all have their own unique preferences, we can take a look at some of the top NFT crypto games from 2021. Here’s a short list:
Axie infinity
This creature battling game made a big impression during 2021.
Splinterlands
This card-trading and battling game was also a very popular 2021 title.
Alien Worlds
This space-exploration game in which players can stake new planets to earn a seat in inner-worldly politics was a huge part of 2021.
Sunflower Farmers
This simple farming game proved that farming can be a good living in 2021, even if you’re just farming in games.
Uplands
Uplands, which was introduced all the way back in 2018 lets players get into the real estate game—pun intended, and was quite popular in 2021.
NFT Games List
We’ve already listed a few NFT games but you might be looking for a longer NFT games list, because as mentioned, each player has their own unique needs for an NFT, so here’s a longer play-to-earn games list, in case you want to do some more research and find an NFT game that’s perfect for you:
- Axie Infinity
- Alien Worlds
- Crazy Defense Heroes
- Sunflower Farmers
- MOBOX: NFT Farmers
- The Sandbox
- Binemon
- Coin Hunt World
- Crop Bytes: A Crypto Farm Game
- Crypto Dragons - Earn NFT
- War Of Ants - Blockchain Game
- Upland: A Virtual Property Trading Game
- Thetan Arena: MOBA Survival
- Magic: The Gathering Arena
- Splinterlands
- Ember Sword
- Age Of Rust
- Nine Chronicles
- Office Land
- Gods Unchained
As you might’ve noticed by now, there are countless NFT games out there, and we can certainly expect to see more and more of them in the near future. This list may seem long, but it isn’t even all of them, and there are plenty more out there—perhaps too many to list. The idea of playing games to earn money is pretty exciting! And as blockchain technology evolves, we can certainly expect to see this idea take a more solid form and see many more players trying their hands at the NFT market.
NFT Games Play To Earn
The idea of enjoying yourself while earning money is an elusive idea—but over the years people have always found new and novel ways to do exactly that. Play-to-earn games may be relatively new, but the concept of play-to-earn isn’t that new at all. For years, players sold accounts of heavily-grinded online games to make money. Streamers showed us that earning money while playing your favorite games without selling accounts is totally possible, and now we’re seeing the latest version of this same concept with NFT games that are play-to-earn (6).
We’ve also seen that these games don't need to require us to make huge upfront investments with many of the most popular NFT games being free-to-play NFT games (7). It’s hard to say exactly what the future will bring or what the future of play-to-earn concepts is, but we can look forward to seeing what advances in blockchain technology will bring us as we move into 2022, and expect to see many more play-to-earn NFT games appear, and maybe even many more free-to-play play-to-earn NFT games. All in all, it’s quite an exciting time for both the gaming community and the blockchain world.
Free NFT Games
As we mentioned, quite a few play-to-earn NFT games are also free NFT games. Some of them might be free to play while the play-to-earn portion of the game is pay-to-play, but some of them are simply free-to-play through and through.
There are quite a few free-to-play crypto games, and you can even play without having to go through the process of finding a serious gaming rig. In fact, many play-to-earn games are mobile games! There are plenty of free-to-play crypto games that can be played on your iPhone or Android devices. Some of the most popular NFT mobile games include (8):
- Axie Infinity
- Splinterlands
- Alien Worlds
- MOBOX
- DeFi Kingdoms - using Metamask
- Pegaxy - coming to mobile in 2022
- Crazy Defense Heroes
There are scores more, but you get the idea: there are plenty of play-to-earn games you can play on your mobile device—no gaming rig required! As mobile gaming becomes more mainstream and blockchain tech and play-to-earn crypto gaming becomes more popular, we can also expect to see some hot new releases in 2022 and later to come. There is no shortage of ways you can play-to-earn on mobile or on free-to-play platforms. Many of the new games we’ll see will also likely be cross-platform.
NFT Trading Platform
You might be wondering: if you earn NFTs playing play-to-earn crypto NFT games, what will you do with them afterwards? Of course, we’ve mentioned that players can trade NFTs they’ve earned in-game outside of the games themselves, but you might be wondering: where? Where do I sell my precious, hard-earned NFTs? Not to worry, there are plenty of ways to sell and trade NFTs earned from play-to-earn games. Depending on which games and which NFTs you’ve collected, there are a few platforms for selling them.
Some games have their own trading platforms, even. Other games will require you to sell or trade your newly earned NFTs on a blockchain platform that corresponds to the blockchain the game was built on. For instance, Splinterlands players can now sell their NFTs on WAX. Axie Infinity also has its own marketplace. It all depends on which game you’re playing and some games may have multiple places to sell and trade NFTs. We might even see dedicated marketplaces pop up during 2022 and beyond where players and collectors can trade multiple types of NFTs across multiple blockchains.
Resources
(1) https://www.forbes.com/sites/justinbirnbaum/2022/01/06/why-video-game-makers-see-huge-potential-in-blockchain-and-why-problems-loom-for-their-new-nfts/?sh=5712fa2743d7
(2) https://axieinfinity.com/
(3) https://splinterlands.com/
(4) https://docs.sunflower-farmers.com/
(5) https://thegww.com/nft-games-most-popular-in-2021/
(6) https://www.the-sun.com/tech/4606383/make-money-play-to-earn-games/#:~:text=CRYPTOCURRENCY%20IS%20being%20incorporated%20into,and%20these%20have%20monetary%20value.
(7) https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/top-free-p2e-nft-games
(8) https://www.techtimes.com/articles/271771/20220213/top-mobile-nft-games-android-2022-cryptornado-more-crypto-gaming.htm