FarmVille creator Zynga is getting into NFT games

Zynga, the creator of hit online games such as FarmVille and Words with Friends, has announced its intent to get onto the blockchain by creating NFT games. 

As Axios reports, Zynga is yet to officially announce any of the NFT games they have in the pipeline, but the first may be released “sooner than later,” according to Zynga’s blockchain chief, Matt Wolf. 

This new NFT game will reportedly be a “ground up, dedicated product,” so it shouldn’t be attached to any existing property from the mobile gaming giant. Thankfully for those within Zynga’s existing teams, Wolf stated that teams “will have the option to out in or out of any NFT plans,” according to Axios. 

While it’s unclear just what this entirely new NFT game will be, it’ll potentially be similar to other play-to-earn titles on the market. In these games, players can tirelessly grind for items or characters in-game, which are minted and then usually sold via the game’s associated sidechain. 

This may sound like a fantastic opportunity to earn some quick cash while playing something on your phone, however, these games often require colossal investment if you want to do more than just waste your time, a fact that Wolf is keenly aware of. 

“When they enter into one of these products, they come at it from an investor or, a whale, point of view and are interested in specific elements including yield,” Wolf told Axios. “We don’t want to bring them something that they didn’t ask for, and we don’t want to assume that they want a super, super deep gameplay experience.”

Instead of having engaging gameplay or an enthralling story, Wolf instead reportedly believes that the fun of NFT games comes from the owning and selling of NFT items. Lest we not forget, these NFT items only have speculative value at best, leaving markets prone to crashing, and transactions of them consume a monumental amount of energy to boot.