There are many reasons why NFT and gaming are a perfect match. For starters, in almost all gaming models before, items purchased in-game have limited use and can only be accessed by a single account. If the account got stolen, disabled, or the gamer decided to move on to the next game, all the money spent would disappear and not generate any returns; the sad reality gamers have come to accept. This model has become prevalent over the past few years because there’s no better alternative—until non-fungible tokens (NFTs) took over the world.

NFT is a digital token, much like cryptocurrency, that represents ownership of a unique item. It is powered by blockchain, certifying its uniqueness which makes the object not interchangeable. One company is transforming the NFT gaming industry by producing high-quality blockchain games set to take the world by storm.

Introducing Animoca Brands

Ranked as one of the High Growth Companies in Asia-Pacific 2021, Animoca Brands is an industry leader in digital entertainment, gamification, and blockchain. The company develops a broad portfolio of products such as SAND token and REVV token, along with several original games including The Sandbox, Crazy Kings, and Crazy Defense Heroes; and products utilizing popular intellectual properties including Formula 1®, Marvel, WWE, Power Rangers, MotoGP™, and Doraemon.

Animoca Brands also has a portfolio of blockchain investments and partnerships, includingDapper Labs (CryptoKitties and NBA Top Shot), OpenSea, Harmony, Bitski, Alien Worlds, and one of the most popular NFT games in the Philippines, Sky Mavis (Axie Infinity). It also has subsidiaries in various games, including The Sandbox, Quidd, Gamee, nWay, Pixowl, and Lympo.

The NFT Market

The NFT market has surged to new highs this second quarter of 2021 with US$2.5 billion sales, a massive growth from just US$13.7 million in the first half of 2020. However, most people think that the NFT market has reached its maximum growth, which Yat Siu, Chairman, and Co-founder of Animoca Brands, disagrees with.

“This is like I see the movement of what we see here, like the internet in 1990-2000. And while it looked like things were growing fast and then accelerated even further between the years that have come to pass, actually even today, 20 years after the fact, they're still growing. I mean, you don't see any of those Internet companies reducing. And even if you were to tell us just a few years ago that the average market caps of those technology companies were going to be in the neighborhood of two to three trillion dollars, you know, many of us would have said, that's ridiculous. So how can that happen?” explains Siu.

What makes NFT valuable

As the NFT market continues to grow, we can expect the value of NFTs to rise, making them more valuable than anyone has ever imagined. But where exactly do NFTs get their value?

“What you're buying is data. And the thing that I look at NFTs., its refined data, it's

basically the kind of data that we have made things happen that have a network effect, that has a value proposition because of the community or because of its construct. And frankly, that is going to the human aspect, what human creativity and achievement are all about,” shares Siu.

You know, when a painter goes in, you're not buying his paintbrush, or you're not buying the canvas, you're buying what's in his head, you're buying his idea, and he just uses the brush or whatever tool he uses to express that creative feeling, that concept, and imbues with it a form of value, whatever that may be. It could be big. It could be small; it could be meaningful. It doesn't matter,” adds Siu.

“But that is a human achievement. That is creativity. When you buy an NFT, that is exactly what you're doing. You're buying that same creative achievement with one difference. You're taking data blocks, which today we as users don't understand the value of. It’s like raw materials.II don't know what to do with it. And then we give the data to someone else, and he makes something out of it,” concludes Siu.

The future of NFTs

The recent increase in overall awareness and popularity of NFTs is propelling the public demand for them. Apart from that, because of the global effects of the coronavirus pandemic, more and more individuals are turning into video games. As a result, a growing base of users is showing a fondness for both virtual gaming and decentralized assets. Therefore, it wouldn’t be a surprise if NFT will continue to dominate the market in the coming years.