Decentraland: The ultimate game for your virtual land hustle
Of the many projects designed to provide more tangible ways to experience the new possibilities of Web3, Decentraland may be the best yet. Despite the game’s technical flaws, it’s not a game you can measure by most traditional metrics. It has simple graphics, sound and gameplay that lag behind even decades-old virtual worlds second life. This begs the question: why bother playing Decentraland if it’s so backwards?
The answer is simple: it is an opportunity to participate in the continuous development of a template for the virtual world all Thanks to the emphasis on gaming, community and blockchain-enabled features.
First things first: what is Decentraland, anyway? As its name suggests, it’s an online game that allows users to explore (and help create) a truly decentralized virtual world within the boundaries of the game.
Sounds cool. But how do I play Decentraland?
With just a few clicks, you can go directly to the game from the game’s website without leaving your browser. Decentraland is currently playable in any Chromium-based browser besides Firefox. Adding to its accessibility for users without a crypto wallet is a guest mode. It’s a stripped-down version of the game that lets you explore many of the worlds that users have created so far, but access bars to its diverse suite of creative tools. Of course, users can also choose to play the game through a downloadable desktop app. Like other Metaverse games — you can even experience complete immersion in the game through a VR headset.
What does the ‘decentra’ part of Decentraland mean?
When it comes to online browser-based games, you can say that Runescape Walked, so that games like Decentraland can fly. Unlike other games that operate under a virtual world framework, Decentraland is decentralized. Instead of a single developer creating game content, in-game content is created almost entirely by its community.
Notably, an analogue of this format appeared more than a decade ago with publication spore In 2008. This life simulator allows players to evolve a species from a cell-based organism to a space-faring civilization. Notably, other species encountered during gameplay were often species created by other players. You can imagine how that went down.
Decentraland players can create whatever they want to populate the game world. And by whatever, we really mean whatever. As with writing, Decentraland lacks any form of formal content moderation. While this may seem like a red flag, other Metaverse projects in the past have successfully launched without proper rules, instead relying on the community to “govern itself”.
Wait, who owns Decentraland?
Technically, everyone. Since this is a blockchain game, all in-game assets — including each user’s in-game currency — are stored on the blockchain. But if you’re wondering who developed the game, it would be game devs Ari Melich and Esteban Ordano.
Together, the pair worked on the game’s first beta and founded The Decentraland Foundation in February. With the support of the game community, Decentraland DAO was also successfully established, enabling the game community to vote on the development going forward.
Can I sell my creations in Decentraland?
Yes. And for real money too. everything Decentraland is decentralized — even with its in-game currency MANA, which doubles as a crypto coin and can be traded for fiat currency. This is how Decentraland players earn money by playing Decentraland and enjoy the Play-to-Earn (P2E) potential of the game.
One of the most common ways for users to earn money from the game is to work in its economy as a virtual merchant. Many users sell their creations on the Decentraland Marketplace for other users to own and use. Devs and users have created games to play within Decentraland that are their own P2E experiences, including a metaverse take on poker.
so what can i do to do Decentralized?
Decentraland is a virtual world — both in function and genre. Virtual worlds are games that fall under the broader umbrella of massively multiplayer online games (MMOs), which enable large groups of players to interact with each other in a persistent digital world.
What makes virtual worlds unique in the MMO sphere is their structure. MMORPGs are like unlike World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy 14, virtual worlds are open-ended, with no clear objective or mission imposed on the player. Instead, “play” lies in interaction with others. In the case of Decentraland, that interaction often comes in the form of in-game events, most notably Deadmau5’s virtual concerts.
In these large-scale social events of the game, its potential really begins to shine. Player avatars flock to these virtual event venues, often dressed in user-created costumes. Often, these virtual venues are created by users, living on in-game parcels of land owned by players.
Wait, can I own land in Decentraland? So how do I buy it?
Yes. Decentraland is one of many platforms in the Web3 space that gives you the opportunity to own virtual real estate, complete with deed in the form of an NFT title and a LAND token. Plots of land are divided into 16×16 meter parcels and are often sold as package estates, consisting of multiple parcels bundled together. Once a user owns land in the game, they are also free to build whatever they want on this virtual land.
In total, 90,000 parcels of land exist, including several thousand parcels privately owned by game developers to serve as roads and other public utilities necessary for the game world to function.
Users can buy and sell these assets on the official Decentraland marketplace or peruse secondary markets available on NFT marketplaces such as OpenSea.
Virtual real estate sounds expensive. So what is the value of land in Decentraland?
It changes. At the time of writing, the current floor price of Decentraland property is at 1.74 ETH. While pricing virtual real estate is nowhere near as expensive as in the real world, some parcels of land have sold for eye-watering prices on the secondary market. For example, according to the latest valuation of the token, this parcel is worth 2 million MANA – a little over $1.6 million.
So far the journey to Decentraland
Decentraland has come a long, long way since its first steps as an early Stone Age demo in 2015. Even before its official release in February 2020, the game had already made waves in public awareness. Remarkably, BBC Trending Covers the rapidly growing support for Decentraland since the beta release of the current iteration in 2018
As the public gradually warms to the idea of virtual land ownership — and learns about Decentraland in the process — more and more people are buying into the idea of engaging in this Web3 simulacrum of society. In the process, Decentraland’s MANA token rose, reaching a peak valuation of $4.65 per token in November 2021, according to CoinGecko. Today, it sits at roughly $0.80 per coin – still an impressive feat, considering MANA’s initial value at 1 cent following its early beta launch in October 2017.
So, is Decentraland worth playing? It may sound tempting, but the answer to that question is ultimately up to you. It’s not a game in the traditional sense – it’s a process. While there may be more polished virtual world experiences available for you to play right now, Decentraland offers players something else: an open invitation to join its community, and take the game to new heights.
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