(H/T BritishGuy of DorkSlayer for bringing this to our attention)
Perhaps the biggest financial publication in the world released an article this morning titled "NFTs Are Spurring a Digital Land Grab - in Videogame Worlds" (subscription required to read full article). It's yet another step in the ascent of platforms like Earth2.io as they try and capitalize on the growing trend for all things virtual having real non-virtual value.
The article went to talk about with the surge in demand for non fungible tokens ("NFT") that work on the blockchain that the demand for digital land that is being treated like an NFT is soaring. They make the comparison to how games like Minecraft and Fortnite are able to sell digital items that have no real-life value and how that has now been transformed into allowing players to trade those same items for crypto or some other token that can be exchanged for real money.
"Strong Wind today in Virtual Land" by fdecomite is licensed with CC BY 2.0.
The article then moves onto virtual real estate in the form of a NFT and how the scarcity of the property causes an appreciation in the value. Some specific examples were then cited including the following:
$1.6 million spent on a large kingdom in fantasy RPG Mirandus.
$1.5 million spent on plots in virtual pet universe Axie Infinity.
Virtual world The Sandbox sold $2.8 million in land that has the value of digital properties on the platform at approximately $37 million.
An interesting point taken from the article is that The Sandbox will allow the building of games within their borders using their game-making tool and that this functionality will be available as early as April. This is something the Earth2.io team is going to need to pay close attention to - read our article "Can Earth2.io Afford Patience?" as a key argument in why time is of the essence for the development team.
While the article doesn't mention Earth2 and how it has actually outperformed The Sandbox in terms of value of digital property (and how they sold well over $2 million just in the United Arab Emirate in the span of a weekend), it does show the blossoming potential of the product and even further highlights the importance of making land tiles NFTs.
Reference: "NFTs Are Spurring a Digital Land Grab - in Videogame Worlds" in The Wall Street Journal by Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez