In fact, the idea of NFT games originated in 2012 with the release of Diablo III. The peculiarity of this RPG was that it was implemented a free auction between the players. That is, any user could sell or buy an item for in-game currency, which, in turn, could be purchased for real money through microtransactions. Diablo III didn’t discover America in this sense, but it was here that Blizzard first used the idea of free exchange/sale of items between players using fiat.

In 5 years, when NFT had already become an integral part of the global cryptocurrency system, the Canadians from Dapper Labs decided to make the most mass product that is NFT game for Android (Diablo III was distributed only for PC, and then they closed the auction). At the same time Dapper Labs used all the current trends. Firstly, they created their game on Ethereum blockchain, which was actively trying to compete with Bitcoin. Second, their game is a dApp, that is, a decentralized application.

And third, we have a full-fledged NFT game in front of us. What does this mean? Let’s describe with the help of concrete example. The main mechanics of the game is breeding virtual kittens (a la modified Tamagotchi). Each kitten is an NFT token. It is non-interchangeable and cannot be transferred to another user without the owner’s consent. But most importantly, two kittens can “reproduce” a third kitten, which will also represent an NFT token. So the owner gets a chance to earn.

The main thing here is that all cryptocurrencies (i.e. NFT coins) belong not to Dapper Labs (the developer), but to Axiom Zen, which produces the cats under the Nifty license. This license is responsible for the fact that users who “breed” cats get the right to own new cats, but cannot use them outside the app. But they can sell them, and withdraw the money to their cryptocurrency wallet and then convert it into fiat.

That’s how NFT games of Play-to-Earn format appeared. Right now such games have already been released or are planning to be released soon by such titans of game industry as Square Enix, Ubisoft, Konami, Epic, Capcom, EA. Although we are not talking about AAA-class projects, most of these games are dApps for mobile devices. It is understandable, because we live in the era of portable gadgets, many are used to play not on PC, and on Android or iOS.