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Gamers will get to play the monster-catching role-playing game Ethermon with a complete new play-to-earn economy inside the virtual world Decentraland. The developers announced their new EMON token as well as the imminent launch of an Ethermon-centered district inside Decentraland.
Inside Decentraland, which is a browser-based virtual world on the Ethereum blockchain, users who also own Ethermon NFTs, can battle each other. In addition, the team will create adventures, tournaments, and more. Through gameplay and winning battles, players can earn MASK credits. They can then use this in-game currency to mint NFTs, and then either sell or burn these NFTs for the EMON token.
The game launched in 2017 as a browser-based battle game called Etheremon on the Ethereum blockchain. Two years later a new development team took over and worked to revamp the game. They renamed the project to Ethermon, introduced their own creatures, while also embracing the already existing ones. The increasing gas fees on the Ethereum network forced the team to move their project to the Polygon blockchain.
So far Ethermon has only had smaller integrations into Decentraland. For example, a developer group called Metazone made Garden Beds, which allows players to feed their Ethermon.
Ethermon joins play-to-earn hype train
While most of the NFT hype is surrounding digital collectibles and art, gaming is often touted as the segment where NFTs make a lot of sense. First of all, of all the gamer demographic is very used to dealing with digital assets and currencies. Second of all, in games, every item can be an NFT. It’s a natural fit.
Play-to-earn is a gaming ecosystem where players earn value through participation in a game’s economy. Farmers earn resources, traders acquire and trade users, fighters battle for items, and so on. All these game activities are driven by an in-game cryptocurrency, which – thanks to its on-chain nature – ties in with the wider blockchain financial ecosystem.
There are already several success stories on the market that tap into the play-to-earn business model. Axie Infinity allows players to earn Small Love Potions and sell these SLP tokens on the open market, while Alien Worlds has players mine Trilium, or TLM. In addition projects like Aavegotchi, F1 Delta Time, The Sandbox, Sorare, and Cometh have been making headlines this year as well.