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New Investment Initiatives To Revolutionize the NFT Gaming Industry GameFi has amassed to become a multi-billion dollar industry in quick fashion

By James Ryan

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NFT gaming is in its infant stages and has quickly shown immense potential. GameFi and play-to-earn (P2E) projects and protocols have been rapidly developing and expanding, showcasing substantial advantages over the traditional gaming industry and offering users the unique ability to reap the rewards from their engagement.

The State Of Affairs: A Temperature Check

GameFi has amassed to become a multi-billion dollar industry in quick fashion. However, directionally, the industry is youthful and fragmented. GameFi pulls together aspects from emerging blockchain verticals, such as decentralized finance (or DeFi), NFTs, and decentralized gaming. These tools allow for a level of depth that supersedes that seen in traditional gaming. NFTs, for example, have been a pillar of GameFi, serving primarily as game characters or in-game assets. DappRadar data shows that NFT trading volumes in the past year have grown in the multiples of hundreds: from just $100M in 2020 to $23B last year. In the GameFi and play-to-earn landscape, these NFTs can be utilized to generate profits through engagement in games.

While DeFi dominated the crypto conversation in 2021, 2022 looks primed to see substantial traction in the GameFi space as cryptocurrency consumers seek the next big bucket of growth. This shift has already been seeing noteworthy adoption as Q4 2021 closed and into Q1 2022.

Investment Initiatives And Revolutionary Industry Growth Potential

All signs point towards GameFi being a major pillar of growth in the blockchain and crypto market this year. Towards the end of last year, the market began seeing multi-billion dollar funds that have been developed strictly for the investment of early-stage GameFi projects. Prime examples include Gala Games partnership with C2 Ventures for a $100M GameFi venture fund and a $150M fund from Solana Ventures, Forte, and Griffin Gaming Partners. This list is far from exhaustive; growing NFT and blockchain games company Animoca Brands has raised a valuation of around $5B according to its last investment round, and many others continue to differentiate and diversify the GameFi market in its early stages.

Major gaming companies and developers continue to discuss and enter the GameFi market, showing that the current state of the market is ripe for future growth. Leading investment and venture capital funds, such as Andreesen Horowitz, continue to direct investments in this cutting-edge area of blockchain technology. Axie Infinity, one of the most notable names in play-to-earn and its native AXS token, has multiplied in value over 500X in roughly a year; its first sale was closed for regular users, and the importance of early access in this space cannot be emphasized enough.

Future Of GameFi

The GameFi industry is primed to explode. But like any young, burgeoning technology, the industry faces several key challenges. In the near term, participants face high entrance costs, for example. Many projects also lack the infrastructure and support necessary to overcome these challenges. However, game guilds are addressing these needs in a variety of unique ways. Some of these game guilds, like Yield Guild Games or Avocado Guild, buy in-game NFTs and rent them out to their members, helping gamers overcome the high price barrier of entry and training newbies to play the game in the most profitable way. Some guilds focus on the development of the industry fueling it by financing and launching new games.

Certain game guilds act more ambitious, like Meta DAO Guild, which not only rents out in-game NFTs to its members but also invented truly decentralized solutions aimed at achieving automated yield on gaming assets in the GameFi space. Meta DAO includes a variety of different verticals, including access to new play-to-earn games that are in early-stage Alpha and Beta testing stages, as well as a scholarship model, NFT p2p rental platform, and NFT exchange MetaExchange.

These tools are a unique, bespoke offering that has yet to be seen in the GameFi atmosphere. For example, Meta DAO's MetaRent tool is a p2p system that connects investors with gamers, allowing each to do what they do best through smart contract integration. This tool combines the abundance of inactive NFT characters that could be utilized for revenue generation, with a growing number of investors who see the value and are willing to dedicate the resources but do not carry the time to engage directly on play-to-earn platforms.

Additionally, Meta DAO opens the door to new investment possibilities through its early-stage incubator DAO Launchpad. This decentralized GameFi venture fund allows users to stake dedicated platform token MDGG and reap the rewards from gaming project tokens, allowing everyday investors access to some of the best deals in GameFi.

Such infrastructural solutions are extremely important for the industry in its current stage. Game guilds like Meta DAO Guild or others build roads paving the way for high-level liquidity. Users onboard the GameFi sector because of its opportunities to generate yield. The NFT gaming sector boomed in 2021 is forecasted to see an exploding growth in terms of adoption in 2022 as the big players among AAA-games developers and billion-worth venture funds enter the space.

Note: Investment in cryptocurrency is subject to risk and readers should do their own due diligence. Entrepreneur Media does not endorse any such investment.
James Ryan

Financial and tech journalist

James is a financial and tech journalist based in Singapore. He is passionate about new technologies, fintech, blockchain. 
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