Gaming and esports ecosystem has already transformed and expanded beyond tier two cities. It has reached Indian homes, be it as a form of ludo game or watching an esports tournament with friends on screen just like a cricket match. With gaming getting a strong foothold in the Indian market, what’s the next big thing that will trendset the industry going forward?
Over the past few months experts are hinting at how blockchain gaming will transform the way forward. Recently AnimationXpress came across Gurugram based OneTo11, blockchain-based gaming ecosystem, who recently announced its exclusive partnership for their first public sale with FireStarter – an IMO launchpad that incubates metaverse crypto projects to release its governance token – 1TO11.
In conversation with AnimationXpress, OneTo11 CEO Ravindra Kumar shared, “The platform is a blockchain based gaming platform with NFT creation and trading capabilities. It features multiple types of games, each directed towards a specific gamer persona. For example – fantasy sports application for sports fans, mobile gaming app for casual gamers, gamified learning app for intellectuals and metaverse RPG games for hardcore gamers. The games are based on the Play-To-Earn model so every time gamers play the games, they earn money. All the games are connected with a common wallet so players can take their earnings from one game to the other easily. The ecosystem also features an NFT marketplace to showcase and trade NFTs created in the games.”
The first game of the OneTo11 ecosystem was launched in 2020. Since then their growth has been phenomenal. Within 14 months of launch, OneTo11 has acquired 1.5 million users and completed 16 million transactions. The MAU rates have reached over 500,000 and 3.5 million revenue has been distributed as gamer earnings.
Here is the excerpt to know more:
What is blockchain in gaming? What are the key trends in blockchain gaming?
Blockchain gaming refers to gaming platforms built on blockchain technology. These games provide gamers the ability to convert their time and skills invested in the game to monetary value or cryptocurrencies thus the Play-To-Earn model is possible in blockchain gaming. Blockchain gaming provides players complete control over the digital assets (skins, weapons, characters) they create or win through playing the games. In regular or traditional gaming, players pay real money for their digital assets, but ultimately the money and the game assets are still the property of the game publisher or developer. Blockchain gaming changes the ownership dynamic of the in-game digital assets.
The gamers on blockchain games have complete ownership of their digital assets, so they can freely trade these assets with other players, sell them, and potentially use them across multiple games.
Currently, in blockchain gaming, multiple games are being introduced by different publishers. However, due to the race to be first to market, most games are not able to deliver good gameplay and stable economics for the Play-To-Earn model. Only some games have decent gameplay to sustain gamers for long term on the platform.
How will NFT and Blockchain revolutionise the gaming ecosystem in 2022?
NFT and blockchain technology are already changing the gaming industry. The power is being shifted from the hands of game publishers to the gamers. NFTs can establish true ownership. Players are no longer serfs on the lands owned by the lord of the manor — the game publishers. They can take their NFT items from games and one day use them in interoperable games in the metaverse. If a game shuts down, that’s no big deal as players will be able to take their avatars and other NFT items to another world. Their investment will never be wasted.
This provides real world monetary value to NFTs and due to that whole economies can be built around NFTs where gamers can convert their time and skills into monetary rewards.
Tell us about your platform’s blockchain-based gaming with NFT enabled play-to earn-games?
On the OneTo11 ecosystem, there are two games with metaverse and NFT creation capability namely CricketX and EvolutionX. Both are blockchain based RPG games targeted at hardcore gamers who want to make serious money via gaming.
CricketX is based on competitive cricket as sport, where gamers can buy NFT characters to build their team and compete in PvP, tournament, and team manager mode. The purpose of the game is to build a strong team and win matches or tournaments. Every time the team plays a match, their experience increases and so does the value of the NFTs. The game also features stadiums, practice pitches, advertising collaterals and equipment as NFTs so that investors who do not want to play the game actively can still earn passive income by lending out their NFTs.
EvolutionX is a NFT capable RPG game that mimics the evolution on the planet Earth from a single celled organism to space age human species. It’s a fast paced game that keeps the gamers on their toes. The best thing about the game is that it’s a metaverse game so every element is convertible into an NFT and can be sold in the open market. The objective in the game is to evolve as fast as possible and establish dominance on the planet with a community of other gamers. So cooperation and building a network of gamers is an inherent requirement of the game.
The NFTs created in both these games are tradeable on the integrated NFT marketplace which is part of the OneTo11 ecosystem. The gamers can trade their NFTs for a very low fee and get exposure immediately amongst the gamers who are playing within the ecosystem and realise the value of NFTs instantly.
What are the challenges of blockchain-based gaming in India?
For any new innovation that goes to market, the first challenge is adoption. The targeted user base has to be given time to understand the product and its value. In India most of the population is risk-averse so we do expect a learning and adoption curve. Meanwhile some international game publishers are making their way to India which increases competition for the homegrown gaming brands like OneTo11.
However, we have good strategies in place to tackle the challenges and our growth numbers are a testament of the gamer community liking our product.
The awareness about blockchain-based gaming is not enough in the ecosystem. What can we do to make it better?
Any new advancement needs some time to penetrate the masses, however the young Indian population is quite enthusiastic and more aware than expected. The response of Indian gamers in adopting blockchain games such as OneTo11 is overwhelming. It is the responsibility of innovators like us to inform, educate and onboard gamers who can profit by joining the ecosystem and encourage them to build the community around the games on OneTo11. Thus we are continuously using our own channels and some publications to spread awareness and valuable information to the gaming community in India. We also have some major publications in India that are paying attention to the blockchain gaming domain and providing reasonable coverage.
Blockchain gaming and NFT has been overhyped in 2021. Your opinion
There is a lot of buzz going around for sure, but the hype is reasonable. People will soon come to realise that NFTs and blockchain are the future of not just gaming but the entire entertainment industry. The gaming industry itself is bigger than Hollywood and sports combined, so when the games become a source of income as well as entertainment, there is certainly supposed to be exponential growth.
What crypto currency is used on your platform? Are you partnered with any crypto currency exchange currently?
OneTo11 uses its own governance token 1TO11 as the native cryptocurrency of the platform. It is used for trading NFTs, getting exclusive privileges on the platform and other in-game advantages.
Currently we are not listed on any exchanges as the public sale of the token has not been conducted. Once the public sale is conducted successfully, we will be listing the token on both private and decentralised exchanges.
There are no frameworks available around blockchain gaming and NFT. It is completely unregulated. What could be the possible risk factors for users.
The technology is progressing quite fast so it is difficult to put up the frameworks. The authorities also are devising policies that provide freedom to genuine projects and protect the people from any unscrupulous ones. Until then, doing research before investing time and money in any blockchain gaing project is strongly recommended. Also, ensuring that there is a large community on a platform will help maintain transparency and trustworthiness.
Your plans for 2022?
In the year 2022, we are adding sports like football, baseball, rugby etc to our fantasy sports app, adding more games to casual games app, and expanding to markets in Asia, Europe, North and South America. Developing countries are a primary target as people there now have good internet connectivity and need a stable source of income for the younger population.
By 2024, we plan to be present in most countries with good internet connectivity and acquire 30 million users that want to earn a stable income via gaming.