The gaming industry has long provided an interesting glance into human behavior. From unexpected gameplay ideas forming dominant strategies to regional diversity on how a video game should be played, there is a lot to unpack when taking a look at how gaming informs us. Perhaps absent-minded fun has always been the primary role of gaming, but the virtual world has taken a backseat for too long. Rather than just a tool for recreational destruction and fantasies, there is a lot of real-world potential to be found within gaming. These virtual spaces could be the key to simulating impactful societal decisions and theories. In a bid to learn more about what this future could look like, we will unpack and investigate the potential of Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on real-world economics through in-game economies. The future of gaming is bound to be integrated with the real world far more than it has ever been. It is no surprise that some of the world’s biggest players in tech are investing hundreds of billions of dollars towards building “metaverses”. However, there is an underrated role games can play today through the power of NFTs. How digital rights ownership could change gaming When conceptualizing the future of gaming, it is advised to remember that it is currently being shaped by today’s decisions. A majority of video games have their own unique systems in place for item categorization. They are largely created as a form of convenience in the eyes of game developers, so this makes them lack integration within the backdrop of a gaming company. Yet, there is some eye-opening potential that can be found by interconnecting video game items with ERP Systems. ERP Systems or Enterprise Resource Planning Systems are a software-based solution for a company’s operational needs. It streamlines and interconnects all aspects of an organization including financials, reporting, manufacturing, human resources and other relevant factors within a company’s structure. It essentially acts as a hub that brings them all together. Because they have existed for quite a while now, many aspects of real-world economics are reliant on the models created by ERP. “If you can't describe what you are doing as a process, you don't know what you are doing” W. Edwards Deming This is a testament to how effective ERP technology is in creating interconnectedness across industries. With gaming, there aren’t any one-way item categorizations that have been standardized. Through the help of established practices from existing ERP Systems, game developers can begin to make their games from the ground up with an intention to expand their reach beyond the virtual sphere. This will primarily be done with the help of NFTs. Such innovation is likely to work successfully because blockchain technology is already quite secure and becoming a standard for digital ownership. With its integration, developers can finally begin to tap into their monetization potentials by fully implementing NFTs with in-game items. Using ERP systems as a model, these NFTs will sync with the real world economy in ways that have never been achieved before. The value of NFTs in gaming for economic simulations While attaching a blockchain address for identification might just help developers create an NFT, the metadata for in-game items are best structured after data exchange standards found in existing ERPs. The reason for this is simple: value and trust. Nobody will gravitate towards the NFTs of a game without being convinced of their value in the first place. When real-world models are the inspiration for NFT integrations, the trading practices of players can be studied and used to inspire new ideas. Additionally, multiverse gaming items can finally become a reality. Allowing players to buy, sell and trade across video games. Rather than limiting the economics to a single video game, it will pose an interesting study to see how items are transferred across an array of games. Gamers are a very experimental bunch and they really don’t require much to be incentivized for participation, especially when the core video game is fun to play. This investigation into the future of gaming was once acknowledged and supported by former Greek finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis. While engaging in research into solutions for Greece’s economic problems, he was reached out to by Valve founder and game developer, Gabe Newell who wanted his insight into the Steam Community markets. Varoufakis saw this as a goldmine for data gathering on economic simulations. In his own words, it was “an economist’s paradise”. It provided a ton of information in terms of data mining, experimentation and lessons that transcended the border separating the digital and real economies. In a world where many gamers are limited by the monetization practices of select developers, fairness and digital rights will be better enforced through gaming NFTs. Players will finally have a say in the financial markets of their games, buying, selling and trading according to their own wants. An arbitrary sale or strategically timed event does not have to be the only way for players to earn items at a fair price. Instead, putting that power into the hands of gamers to choose how they want to trade their items is basically something that serves as a sort of mirror dimension in the virtual world. Experimental activity is bound to happen within these economies, especially when they transcend a single video game. Rather than surrendering their rights to in-game items in their accounts, blockchain-based ownership is a way to avoid the limitations of DRM technology that plays a predatory role in the current gaming clime. When there is no guarantee that a game will continue to be supported 10+ years into the future, it can be a bit difficult to convince players to invest their real money into in-game items. That is why NFTs and blockchain-based solutions are so powerful for the future of gaming. This could finally allow players to trade in-game items in ways we never imagined. ERP systems are not only amazing for bringing this future to light, they are necessary. Gaming NFTs can also be further integrated in the real world with the use of QR codes and NFC technology to create special rewards and discounts when buying or selling tangible items along with in-game items as a way to further incentivize trade. Conclusions With the addition of digital rights ownership to video games and the use of blockchain-based solutions, we strongly believe that gaming will grow beyond virtual worlds. ERP Systems have the power to make that possible. Video games might have once been a simple tool for escapism, but the potential they have for real-world innovation makes them a far more intriguing way to gauge economic innovation strategies thanks to a stronger safety net. The most fundamental advantage of NFT paradigm into ERP systems is that the integration of a myriad of business processes with data integrity saves time and expense. Management can make decisions faster and with fewer errors. Data becomes visible across the organization.
