NFT Games: What They Are, How They Work, and Which Ones Still Matter
When you hear NFT games, video games where in-game items like characters, land, or weapons are owned as non-fungible tokens on a blockchain. Also known as blockchain gaming, they promise real ownership—unlike traditional games where everything you buy vanishes if the server shuts down. But most NFT games don’t deliver on that promise. Many are just flashy interfaces slapped onto low-value tokens, with no real gameplay, no community, and no reason to keep playing after the initial hype dies.
The real issue isn’t the tech—it’s the business model. A lot of NFT games were built as play-to-earn, a system where players earn crypto tokens by playing, often with the expectation of selling them for profit. Also known as crypto games, they attracted people looking to make money fast, not to enjoy a game. That turned them into gambling schemes disguised as entertainment. You’d spend hours farming tokens only to watch their value crash. The ones that survived—like Axie Infinity in its early days—had strong economies, real gameplay, and players who cared about the world, not just the price chart.
Today, the NFT game space is a graveyard of abandoned projects. But that doesn’t mean the idea is dead. The ones still standing focus on fun first, earning second. They use NFTs not as lottery tickets, but as collectibles that actually improve your experience—like rare weapons that change how you fight, or land that unlocks new areas. Some even let you trade items across games, creating real utility beyond a single app.
What you’ll find below isn’t a list of the next big thing. It’s a collection of real stories—what worked, what didn’t, and why. You’ll see how airdrops like the OneRare First Harvest gave out ingredient NFTs for a food-themed game, and how the Dragonary airdrop on BSC GameFi Expo turned into a cash-out frenzy. You’ll learn about projects that promised NFTs but never delivered, and others that quietly faded after the hype. These aren’t guides to get rich. They’re warnings, lessons, and a few quiet wins from a market that’s still figuring itself out.
