One of the most popular forms of online gaming these days is NFT games. Such games use Non-fungible tokens or NFT as rewards or in-game items. This unique game format can help players earn while playing, making it a popular genre. Such games are lucrative investments too.
The NFT gaming market has grown significantly, reaching $3200 million in 2022. The games’ features can drive engagement and improve player retention, making it a lucrative genre for developers.
Read on to learn all about the factors influencing the NFT game development cost. Also, know the different features that can enhance such games and make them more lucrative to players.
NFT or Non-fungible tokens are unique digital collectibles on a blockchain. In an NFT game, these collectibles are available in various forms. Gamers can exchange skins, characters, outfits, and other items for real currency. These games are built on blockchain technology that promotes in-game economy.
The NFT games have a play-to-earn model that provides an intersection between finance and gaming. Such games often are backed by cryptocurrency, adding real-world value to the assets.
There is a range of functionalities, features, and important factors that can affect the cost to develop a NFT game. When you have a detailed breakdown, planning the development process gets streamlined. Here are the factors to consider when you seek NFT game development services:
Smart contracts are digital contracts that get stored in the blockchain. This makes them tamper-proof and easy to execute. These smart contracts are essential to eliminate the need for centralized authority that facilitates transactions. Game developers can ensure a fair and transparent gaming environment by creating smart contracts.
Smart contracts are elemental to manage the creation, ownership, and overall trading of NFT in-game assets. They are an indispensable part of NFT games that are trusted by the players. It takes approximately 40-80 work hours to ideat and develop such contracts.
Minting a token means converting digital data or digital assets into crypto and recording them on the blockchain. These get stored in a digital ledger or files in the decentralized database. Thus, it cannot be edited, deleted, or duplicated. The entire token minting process takes 20-40 hours, depending on the size of the project.
The NFT games let the players own in-game assets truly. Since such assets get stored on a blockchain, they cannot be duplicated or tampered with. The players are the owners rather than the developers. The developers need to create these assets during development. The number of assets and their complexity altogether affect the development cost.
The items traded in the NFT game environment are unique and rare. Every asset gets represented by a unique NFT on the blockchain. The players must register to gain ownership by buying or selling the items. The ownership history is transparent, ensuring the authenticity of the assets through smart contracts. Thus, the players have to register and validate their identity to play and participate in NFT games. This is done to ensure overall security. Developing and designing the registration and authentication system can take around 60-100 hours.
The rules, core loop, and controls of the game altogether get termed the game mechanics. It is a major part of the game development process and takes a long time to ideate and execute. Depending on the project scale, the time needed to develop the game mechanics can be anywhere around 80-120 hours.
The game world is the virtual space where the players engage in the game. It includes the surrounding environment, characters, props, sound effects, animations, and so on. It is another very crucial part of the development that makes your NFT game more interesting. It takes 120-200 development hours to complete the game world design approximately.
The video game development company can ideate and add additional features to make your game even more engaging. Bonus levels, multiplayer functionality, exclusive rewards, limited-time offers- there are a plethora of possibilities. The budget will increase as you add more features, and so will the development time.
Secure and flexible payment modes are crucial to ensure safe transactions so that players can easily buy NFTs, and in-game assets, using cryptocurrency or real-world currency. The payment system integration takes 40-80 hours.
The NFT games are based on a decentralized marketplace. This means the players do not need a centralized authority to trade with the in-game assets. They can gain complete ownership history and verify the data. They can also set prices, negotiate deals, and create a player-driven economy in the NFT game world because of the decentralized marketplace.
It can take 60-100 development hours depending on how well you diversify the marketplace during the initial development phase.
The total time needed to develop an NFT game depends largely on the size of the project. Larger and more complex the game, the higher the development time and cost.
The game engine used by the game development outsourcing company plays a crucial role in cost estimation for the project. It will affect the overall game development cost breakdown. There are various popular game engines like Unity, Unreal, GameMaker, and so on. The preferences, features, budget, and similar requirements must get envisioned to choose the right game development platform.
The skill, experience, and overall size of the development team also affect the cost. A larger team may need lesser development hours. On the other hand, based on their expertise and experience, they are likely to charge more per hour or on a project basis.
NFT games are profitable for owners and developers. But it is equally advantageous for the players. Let us find out the different ways in which a quality NFT game can generate revenues for developers and players:
Here’s how starting an NFT game company can be profitable:
The game design and features,- all influence the overall popularity of the game. This is why, NFT game development cost must be determined such that, there is no compromise regarding the design and functionality of the game.
NFT Game development cost is higher but gets justified when you consider the eventual ROI. Take the example of the Axie Infinity created by a Vietnam-based startup, which earned $1 billion in revenue since it was launched in 2018.
This is a unique game genre that lets players earn significantly and with real currency. They can store the earnings in cryptocurrency wallets or invest them to further acquire unique NFT in-game assets. Here’s what makes NFT games popular and profitable for players:
The total development time is approximately 540-580 hours or 10-12 weeks and the cost comes approximately to $70,000-$ 350,000. Other factors such as the location of the game development outsourcing company, its branding, and reputation, stature of the project- all affect the NFT game development cost breakdown.
Here is a list of estimated NFT Game development costs, based on the location of the developing team:
| Location | Estimate cost range |
| USA | $60K-$200K |
| India | $30K- $150K |
| Australia | $40K-$180K |
| UK | $70K-$300K |
| Canada | $50K-$200K |
The total estimated cost of NFT game development also varies depending on the game engine as well as the development teams working on it. Let us delve a little deeper into the cost estimations based on these factors.
Unity Personal Plan is available for free. Occasionally Indie developers and small companies access this option. However, Unity Plus is a paid version that is used by larger companies whose turnover is over $200K in the last 12 months. Hence, that will add significantly to the NFT game development using Unity.
The cost of using Unreal for NFT game development is 5% of the gross revenue, provided it generates more than $ 1 million. Moreover, you do not have to pay for the full edition of Unreal before the game earns enough. Hence, the overall development cost in the initial stage is negligible.
Getting an in-house team to develop the NFT game would incur several expenses. The cost of hiring experts, and getting suitable hardware and software altogether add a significant initial expense before the development starts.
Hiring a game development outsourcing company is comparatively cost-effective as such companies already have the required manpower, tools, and software setup. Moreover, they have years of experience in delivering a wide variety of game development projects. Depending on the company’s location, the cost would vary accordingly. But once you outsource the work, you need not take up any hassles till you get the delivered product.
The NFT game development cost has several layers to it. But if the budget gets used judiciously, the game can generate significant revenues that make it a worthy investment. Juego Studios offers NFT game development services aiming to make your game a successful investment that keeps bringing home-worthy revenues.
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