ETH staking vs ETH mining

I know the mining of ETH has become quite unrewarding because of the high power consumption that usually results in mining not being profitable at all. For this reason, the majority of us switched to ETH staking because of the obvious advantages, and I've been quite satisfied with my ETH earnings from staking so far.

That being said, lately, I became interested in ETH mining projects that take mining to a virtual level, eliminate the energy-intense part of the equation, and make mining profitable again. Since the mining is usually done through a cryptocurrency that's either based on ETH or BTC, it sort of combines staking with old-school mining, giving us a completely fresh and unique approach to acquiring ETH or BTC. NFT City Miner for example does this by basing the worth of their coin on ETH, thus guaranteeing its floor price and the floor price of the NFTs. You can assemble the mining rigs in the game by staking some ETH, and start mining their coin which's worth is ultimately based on ETH.

This lead me to the question of whether this type of ETH mining could be something to keep an eye on in the future because it seemed to me like it could have a lot of potential. I know of the advantages of staking over traditional mining, but what if this could actually allow for more variety and moon potential when compared to traditional staking? I'd love to know your thoughts on this.