(8) Ramble of NFT game: Axie Infinity and Blockchain market

     “Wealth, fame, power…”, Gold Roger, the King of the Pirates , obtained this and everything else the world had to offer , and his dying words drove countless souls to the seas.  "You want my treasure? You can have it!” “I left everything I gathered together in one place! Now you just have to find it!" These words lured men to the Grand Line. In pursuit of dreams greater than they’ve ever dared to imagine! "This is the time known as the ‘Great Pirate Era’!. This is the classic opening line of my favorite anime "One Piece".

As a One Piece fan for more than ten years, I thought that the influx of people into the "new world" will only appear in the animation world. But this year, when block chain get hot and I played NFT games ‘Axie Infinity’ for a while, I realized that the scenario of millions of people flood into a new world of "Blockchain" is on Show!. People who dream of getting rich rush to the world of block chain, crypto currency, and NFT.

      During the adventure, some people will lose everything, some will get wealth and success, but the operating mode of the NFT game Axie Infinity will have a significant impact on the future of game industry. Although now its play mode isn’t more interesting than many console games and centralized online games, but it turns the simple relationship (buyer and seller) between game companies and players into a partnership, which is actually disruptive. In my opinion, new relationship between game companies and players made by decentralized NFT games is the root cause of its significant impact.

In the past, the online games were all centralized, whether computer games or mobile games. Game companies have the ownership, portrait rights, interpretation rights, etc. Therefore, all game companies will actively develop new contents including: new characters, new pets, new gameplay modes, and new costumes again and again, different but very look like each other. They will actively stimulate players to play new content and consume in the game.（they actually milk players’ money with new things）

Over the past few decades, this online game mode has been very successful. After all, as long as the number of players is large enough and the game can maintain its popularity, there will be whale players spending more money in the game to have a better game experience and they can get the envy of other players, of course the game companies earn a lot. But under this game mode, only game manufacturers have sufficient motivation to improve their games, only a few elite players can profit from the game. The majority of game players have almost no ownership of the game content, and their willingness to make good suggestions and promotion of the game is almost zero.

In other words, game manufacturers have not fully motivate most of the players to be better and get more than a game experience. Then those game content will not be well-known and accepted in real world, and the revenue will only come from whale players, no other different ways, such as Tencent game " Dungeon & Fighter"(DNF) is like this.

Now, when NFT games such as Axie Infinity appears, in which players can buy or rent NFT pet, then use NFT pet to play games to obtain crypto currency, and finally sell crypto currency to real currency, and players get the opportunity to share game revenue. The way of sharing profit has greatly stimulated the enthusiasm of the all Axie Infinity players. It looks like that the profit of the game company has been divided up, but when the cake of this game gets bigger and bigger, the left part is still considerable. What’s more, during the process of Axie Infinity development, the enthusiasm of the old players has not diminished, and a large number of new players have also actively come in, I mean in this way Axie Infinity has a sustainable positive cycle.

I have seen that many commentators questioned its mode, thinking that this situation is unsustainable, because a large number of new players must join the game and invest in the game’s NFT, then players who played early can make money. Their conclusion is that this game operation mode is ‘Ponzi Scheme’. But this judgment is only based on existing content , it is actually short-sighted.

Since Axie Infinity is an animated pet game with cute images, it will not only be able to gain income from the sale of game assets in the future. For example, the development of animation cartoons, (currently the 2D design of game pet images and enemy images is complete, and the game company has sufficient financial resources). After Animation cartoons develop for a period of time, and after gaining higher visibility and recognition, develop animation peripheral products, such as toys. (There are already Axie toys with plush dolls), stationery, food, clothes (Axie Infinity T-shirts are already on sale), etc. These contents are all consumables that have large demand in the real world. There are already many cartoons and animations. Many other games and cartoon have obtained a lot of benefits in these aspects. About Axie Infinity’s advantages of cartoon development, my article :  .

    A relatively recent example of making money outside the game is "Angry Birds". It has also been developed from games. Currently, it has made a lot of money in games and animation peripheral products. It has even established "Angry Birds" theme park in Finland. And a cartoon film of "Angry Birds" was shown on the big screen in 2016.

If Axie Infinity actively develops and grows big enough, besides NFT contents, it can also make money from cartoons and things in reality. It will get the opportunity to become an "Angry Bird" in developing countries. When it is widely known, its revenue will not only come from the game NFT trading, so it is really sloppy to say that it is a Ponzi scheme only based on current content. Of course, it will take a long time to realize the long-term plan. In the short term, it still has many problems and limited gameplay mode. However, as a commenter, you should not be short-sighted only see current content and jump to conclusions. Having a developmental vision is an important element of this era, and only picking at faults is arrogant and prejudiced.

        Now let me list some existing problems I know again:

1. For NFT security problem, scammers have not been sanctioned. The game team has limited penalties for scammers. I mentioned the scam I had suffered in the first article, but I did not get back my assets. Article 1 link :  (1)Decentralized NFT Games Risk and Safety Suggestion .

2. What is the percentage of game and animation operating income can players who hold Axie pets, governance token AXS, and Lunacia land get?

If only a small number of players and game companies can get it, others can’t get any , then it is the same as centralized online game mode.

If all players holding these NFTs and game governance currencies can share the game operation income, then these game-based content NFT is a kind of game company "alternative stock" that has dividend attributes and can participate in games.

    I have read articles saying that it is wrong to give game governance to players. Players should be arranged by the game company. After all, players themselves don't know what they want.

But in fact, as a player, I know what I want. I want everyone in the game to be fair and equal, and the assets of the game can also be easily traded. The time and energy I spend in the game can let me gain real-world benefits in some way. I really don’t understand: Why do clever critics just slap their heads, then players like me will never know what we want ? !

Maybe this is another question of "you are not a fish and how can you know the happiness of fish": I said that the critics don’t know what the players want, and the critics will stand up and say: "You are not me, how do you know that I don’t know? The players don’t know what they want! Never!"  .  All Right! Funny!

3. The popularity of players on the game community Discord is high enough, but there are few effective and beneficial communication channels between players and the Axie Infinity team, and the effect is not so good.

After I wrote 6 or 7 articles about the game, I wanted to contact the game team. However, no matter it was through Discord, Reddit, or Twitter, no one paid any attention to me. The first one who contact me was a scammer and a person seeking scholarship.

It gives me the feeling that Axie Infinity team don't care about normal players, and the suggestions made to the players will not be adopted.

As a result, I can only post articles by myself, which is time-consuming and laborious, and the effect is very mediocre. In my understanding, in order to stimulate the power of a large number of player groups, there must be a convenient communication channel between the game team and the player group. I also hope that the production team can provide such a convenient communication channel as soon as possible.

I know that Axie Infinity has only been in operation for 3 years, including development time, it is still very young, but I sincerely hope that it will continue to improve and become a great game, a big game platform, and a world famous animation IP. During the process of Axie Infinity development, players will get happiness and wealth.

 As I wrote in my article, in the short term, sharing game revenues between game companies and players is helpful to solve the survival problem of people who are unemployed due to the epidemic.

In the long run, it will be good news for game companies to share game revenue with players for people with disabilities. After all, people with disabilities are more suitable for activities and work at home. If there are more such mental work, it will be a very good choice.

Besides NFT game like Axie Infinity, I still don't know the value of other artworks and avatar NFTs. The scarcity and rare type is more obvious. For example, on the Alipay Antchain, the Asian Games Torch NFT number one was fired to 3 million RMB, but what is the use of this thing, and what benefits can I share with these NFTs? This situation reminds me of the booming Chinese stamp and coin market around 1990.

Stamps and coins are generally issued by the government and have commemorative significance and commemorative value. Although these NFTs also have some artistic and commemorative value, they are only issued by a certain company.

This is the current situation of the domestic NFT art market, and I think if you want to make a difference, you must be willing to share copyright revenue with NFT holders, just like Axie Infinity, then these NFT souvenirs will have economic value.

In fact, earlier this year in many countries, the NFT market was very hot. Many NFT artworks on the OpenSea platform were mass-produced and bought and sold by blockchain players. I actually have a pixel work on this chain "Laser! Fire! ", link: Laser!Fire! in OpenSea  , it was made with Pixelchain (pixel chain), I regard it as an attempt in NFT.

Now, I can see that Alipay AntChain has also imitated OpenSea's approach, replacing the content with Chinese elements for sales. Some goals have indeed been achieved, but what it will be in the future and what is the size of NFT market are still unpredictable. "Blocktrain Arts" without copyright revenue will only be collected by people, they shout slogans of remembrance, then trade again and again for selling NFT could make money. It's just a rarity of hype.

I also bought some NFTs on AntChain, and I want to see what the market will develop in the future. I would rather buy some Japanese animation NFTs, but I have not seen them appear on large NFT platforms yet. There are so many anime fans all over the world, so in the future, authorized NFTs with Japanese animation themes must be more promising and popular.

Maybe human beings are creatures who like to compare, show off, and have a tendency to collect. I remember when I was in primary school, the Little Raccoon's Water Margin Card with Crispy Noodles and Cheetah's Three Kingdoms General Card were all the rage.

The current NFT market is booming, and newcomers are constantly joining the NFT collection circle, as if the scene of collecting stamps, coins, and military cards yesterday reappear. There are also articles suggesting that in the future, blockchain computing power and NFT can be used as the basis for the construction of the meta-universe, but the scenario described by the meta-universe is still too far, and there are still many technical problems to be solved. We should be step by step，continue moving.

       After I started to study the blockchain and crypto currency, I also found that some people are participating in the blockchain currency contract. Both the price go up and down, people could get money for their choice.

But I think this is like gambling, just a game played by the dealer. Therefore, this form of crypto currency investment is actually subject to government control and expressly prohibited.

Besides the crypto currency contract, there are many fake apps that trick players into investing money, but they don't give the opportunity to withdraw cash, and finally run away with all the money. If these risks are encountered by only a small number of people participating in the blockchain and NFT, it will only make the participants feel unlucky. If a large number of people are recruited, the loss will be immeasurable and irreparable. Therefore, these crypto currency and blockchain speculative content are banned, and I think it is a right choice.

Blocktrain artwork and the crypto currency market need healthy, active, and long-term development. Although this will reduce the chances of many people getting rich, but for most of the people, they will not be easily deceived by the trap of getting rich, they won’t suffer significant damage to property.

If people want to get the success of blocktrain art and the long-term development of the crypto currency market, the key point is to solve the problem of digital asset security.

At present, this problem is particularly prominent. Due to decentralization, these digital content cannot be recovered after being stolen. This kind of risk is very high, but it is very suitable for money laundering and network fraud.

I think the digital art and digital currency market that most people are most suitable to participate in must have the concept of decentralization, but they can’t be completely separated from security supervision. Otherwise, the property of the people who have suffered losses cannot be recovered, and this market will be the birthplace of one tragedy after another, and become a paradise for online scammers.

       In accordance with the huge demand for network virtual asset protection in the future, we might as well predict it boldly. In the future network world, there will still be a large number of network technicians with positive energy, and a large number of network police and network co-policemen with network technology. Their duty is to protect public's digital wealth on the Internet will combat and punish cyber criminals.

If I have the opportunity, I would be willing to do some work in this area in my free time in the future. It's not because I have a lot of positive energy, but because I was deceived by foreign scammers on the Internet. After all, causally speaking, they scam me first. I just hope I have a chance to fight back!

I hope that digital assets will be better protected in the future. I wish the digital art and digital currency market develop safely and healthily. I wish the players of Axie Infinity get better profits!