In-game assets on blockchain

In traditional games, items live in the publisher's database and players only have a licence to use them; trading is often banned or limited to official markets. Blockchain games issue items as NFTs or fungible tokens, frequently using the ERC-1155 standard, which handles many item types in one contract. Players hold them in their own wallets and can sell them on open marketplaces without the developer's permission.

Supporters argue this gives players real property rights, lets them recover value from time spent and enables items to be used across games or kept after a game ends. Developers earn from primary sales and royalties on trades. Several games have built player-driven economies where crafted items, land and characters change hands regularly.

In practice, an item's usefulness still depends on the game's servers and rules; if the game closes, the token may be a souvenir. Speculation can distort game design, and bridges and game chains have been major hacking targets, as when the bridge of a popular game's sidechain lost over $600 million in 2022. Some large platforms have banned games that use NFTs.