An interesting new investment fund called Yield Guild Games (YGG) has come onto the scene recently. It is essentially a holding company for play-to-earn gaming assets. They have purchased a combination of incoming-generating NFTs and currencies for play-to-earn games with high growth potential. Included in their list is Ember Swords, a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Game, which gives players the opportunity to own land within the game.
In this post I'll cover land NFTs in general, as well as go over how to buy Ember Sword land via TokenTrove on the Polygon side-chain.
Investing in Land NFTs
NFTs are one of the riskiest crypto assets you can put your money into. Groups of people have invested millions of dollars worth of ETH into collaborate NFT art projects only to end up getting rug-pulled by the founder. While on the other hand, you can invest a few hundred dollars into a piece of land and get over 100x returns.
By far one of the safest types of NFT investments to make is in-game land. As land is a core component of many blockchain games, the demand for it should grow as more players join the ecosystem. All the perks of owning land are not even known yet - in the future they may provide a source of passive income, enable certain in-game features, or serve as a way to increase your status in the gaming world.
Bitcoin advocates often reiterate how Bitcoin is limited to only 21 million coins. While true, digital scarcity is not limited to Bitcoin. Many blockchain games also have a set, limited quantity of land. For example, Axie Infinity will only have ~90,000 plots, and the Sandbox will only have ~160,000. What will happen to the value of these land plots if the game reaches one, ten, on a hundred million users? We've already seen the incredible success of Axie Infinity, and now other game developers have taken notice. The key here is to find the games that have a dedicated team with the most long-term potential.
How to buy Ember Sword land
Ember Sword made the first sale of land to players/investors back in July. Now that the pre-sale is over, the land is available on secondary marketplaces such as TokenTrove and OpenSea, where it's listed at about 10x the original sale price. Currently, the cheapest land on the marketplace is selling for 0.11 ETH, or about $470 USD.
Of course, running the game on the Ethereum mainnet would be too costly for the users in terms of transactions fees. Instead of creating their own sidechain, like how Axie Infinity made Ronin, Ember Sword decided to use the existing Polygon Ethereum side-chain. Follow the steps below to setup Polygon in Metamask and purchase land from TokenTrove.
Acquire some Ethereum from an exchange and send it to your Metamask wallet
- To keep things organized, you may want to create a new account in Metamask specifically for this game.
Setup access to the Polygon side-chain
- Check the network details at Polygon's official website.
- Select "Ethereum Mainnet" at the top of Metamask, then choose "Custom RPC". Fill in the network details found in the link above (Network Name, Chain ID, RPC url).
Transfer ETH from Ethereum Mainnet to the Polygon side-chain
- Go to the Polygon wallet
- Click the Deposit button beside ETH and transfer some ETH from the Ethereum chain to the Polygon chain.
- Sign the transaction with Metamask and wait at least 10 minutes for the ETH to show up on Polygon after the first confirmation.
Get some Matic tokens to pay for transactions on the Polygon network.
- MATIC tokens are required to execute transactions on the Polygon side-chain. You can try to get some for free at a faucet website like https://matic.supply As per the Discord, many people have had issues with getting an "undefined" error on this site.
- The other option is https://macncheese.finance/matic-polygon-mainnet-faucet.php. Just fill in your Polygon address (same as the ETH address) and complete the captcha. Be patient. It may take 10 - 15 minutes for the Matic to hit your wallet. If the faucet amount isn't sufficient, the next option is to use an exchange like Binance, Kucoin, or sideshift.ai to trade some of your other crypto for Matic.
- Axie Infinity definitely had their less tech-savvy users in mind when they gave everyone 100 daily free transactions on their Ronin sidechain!
Buy land on TokenTrove
Access the Ember Sword land marketplace on TokenTrove.
Sort the land by lowest price if you want the best bang for you sats.
Select your favorite plot and click the Buy Now button. Land located closer to settlements, towns and cities are expected to be more valuable as that is where the majority of trading will occur.
Confirm the transaction in Metamask. Interestingly the fees are still labeled as ETH, even though they are being paid with MATIC. A future update to Metamask should fix this.
You can verify whether the purchase went through by copying and pasting your Polygon address into https://polygonscan.com/ and checking your inventory under My Account on TokenTrove.
If you run into any isses not covered here be sure to join the Ember Sword community Discord. Before asking your question in the channel, use the search bar at the top right to find existing solutions to problems or error messages you may be encountering.
While the technical hurdles of bridging ETH from the Ethereum chain to the Polygon chain and executing transactions there will be a challenge for non tech-savvy users, this process will no doubt be simplified as the project continues to develop.
All things considered, adding land NFTs to your portfolio is another great diversification strategy and will position you well for the upcoming transition from pay-to-play gaming to play-to-earn blockchain-based gaming.
Sources:
https://blog.coinbase.com/axie-infinity-yield-guild-games-the-play-to-earn-economy-e73ac6b39e6c
https://yieldguild.io/