You’re probably sick of hearing about NFT’s by now, and at this point you probably have formed an opinion on them which might make you eye roll or sigh at another sight of these glorified Jpegs.

Joud Boksmati, Associate Director at Publicis Media Luxe

I’m here to tell you a lot of the criticism at the current art NFT economy is in some cases very much justified, but artwork and what we see today is just one of the easiest use cases for NFT’s. The actual potential of NFT tech stretches far beyond that, and we are here just at the beginning.

I believe that Luxury and Gaming NFT’s will be the driving force of this new technology. In 2020 approximately 54 billion dollars was spent on supplementary in game purchases, that could range from in game cosmetics, gear, items, etc. And approximately zero of it trickled down to resale value for purchasers.

For those who don’t know, the current gaming landscape is dominated by major Free to Play titles such as Fortnite and Call of Duty Warzone. The major revenue driver for the studios behind these titles are undoubtedly cosmetics and skins – everyday millions of players are purchasing all kinds of in game swag. So why shouldn’t you be able to trade these in game digital goods? You bought or earned them.  

Now think about how NFT’s will disrupt this system, items that were centralized and produced at zero cost can now be part of an entirely new secondary economies. In March 2022 international gaming retailer Gamestop and Immutable X announced a strategic partnership for a new NFT marketplace targeting the advancement of high impact NFT gaming projects. Immutable X or IMX is a layer 2 scaling solution for NFT’s on Ethereum, and today it acts as the main marketplace for games like Gods Unchained. Gods Unchained is a blockchain based, Free to Play, trading card game that gives players true ownership of their collection and rewards you for playing. We truly are just at the beginning, more and more we will see these types of projects, marketplaces and play to earn/own business models take center stage for the gaming industry. 

The same case could even be made for video games themselves, where once you had a digital game code that is bought once and then instantly worthless – you would now have a used game code for resale on a secondary market. It really gets exciting when you look at the dissolving line between physical and virtual economies. 

Imagine for example tomorrow you buy a watch, as soon as you buy it you also are granted its linked digital NFT equivalent. Not only does the NFT serve as potential digital swag for your metaverse or in-game avatars, it also serves an authentic proof of ownership should you ever choose to resell the watch in the real world. In fact, the authenticity use case alone is a major game changer – given that this is a significant factor in luxury fashion and jewelry space. 

This premise is exactly what lead to the creation of the Aura Blockchain Consortium, a joint venture by LVMH, Prada, Cartier, and others to serve the entire luxury industry with powerful product tracking and tracing services. Built on the Ethereum blockchain, Aura makes it possible for consumers to access the product history and proof of authenticity for luxury goods – from raw materials to the point of sale, all the way to second hand markets. Just last month Aura announced the launch of its new NFT solutions, Aura NFT Gifting and Aura NFT White Label which would in theory allow any brand to easily gift NFT’s and create their own NFT storefront. It’s clear that the NFT wave is coming to the luxury space in a big way, and it will fundamentally change the industry for the better. 

These are just some of the use cases of NFT technology. There are major cases to be made for their use as well in real estate, elections, intellectual property, identity verification, and many others. The potential is truly astounding, but in my eyes Luxury and Gaming will be the two spaces which will drive NFT adoption and welcome the Web 3 revolution. A new economy where digital goods are given value and ownership is truly democratized.