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| By Jurica Dujmovic |
In just a few short decades, video games have drastically advanced from nostalgic, pixelated classics like Pac-Man and Super Mario Bros. to fancy virtual reality games with breathtakingly realistic graphics.
Now the ever-evolving gaming industry is facing yet another transformative phase with the advent of web3 gaming.
This new era — characterized by blockchain-based, decentralized games — is providing players with unprecedented control over their in-game assets.
To help us understand the current landscape and future prospects of web3 gaming, I have reached out to two industry experts at the forefront of this revolution.
Our first expert is Justin Ross — head of gaming at NFTcommunity, a group of non-fungible token experts that helps new members access trusted NFT projects and resources. He has been closely involved in the ongoing evolution of web3 gaming, offering insights into the challenges and opportunities this innovative space presents.
Next, we have Adam Bendjemil, head of partnerships at BNB Chain, a blockchain service that allows developers to build their own decentralized apps using smart contracts. He brings his extensive knowledge of the web3 gaming landscape to comment on the ongoing developments and trends in this sector.
Other than simply integrating blockchain technology, Ross and Bendjemil both agree that the key difference between regular games and web3 ones is the introduction of real-world value within the gaming environment.
Web3 games allow players to truly own their in-game assets. They can also trade those assets freely across various marketplaces or through direct transactions with others.
This creates a level of autonomy that’s never been seen before in traditional gaming.
Additionally, decentralized autonomous organizations — groups represented by rules encoded as a computer program that are transparent and controlled by the organization’s members — can be built to make effective changes to genres.
This means players get to have more of a say in the direction of their favorite games, which could improve community engagement.
In traditional gaming, this level of decentralized player control is unheard of.
Bendjemil goes on to further explain how web3 games incorporate blockchain and web3 oracles, which are digital entities used to provide data to blockchain systems. These systems ensure true randomness in gameplay, as well as ownership of in-game assets through NFTs.
Although the front-end of web3 games may be similar to successful games from other categories, they have unique back-end features which have the potential to significantly impact their success.
However, it was not always this way. Much of the early web3 gaming landscape was speculative in nature, with many games being simple idle or mining-style games which lacked a “fun” element.
In recent years, developers have been focusing on creating games that are not only fun and engaging … but also leverage the unique capabilities of blockchain technology.
While web3 games are certainly appealing, they also present several challenges. In particular, they can be quite complex and there is a gap in gameplay compared to traditional games.
Bendjemil acknowledges this, saying, “The development of high-quality and fun web3 games requires significant talent and resources. Many new IPs are being built in the web3 space, but it’s likely that many will fail before a winner emerges.”
Despite these hurdles, both our experts agree that web3 games hold the potential to revolutionize the traditional gaming business model.
This is because the opportunity to earn real-world value through gaming could attract a whole new demographic of players and fundamentally alter how we view and interact with video games.
Even so, Ross raises a good point in saying that the technology itself presents an obstacle to mass adoption because of its complexity.
But he sees a solution in providing educational resources, as well as in creating gaming communities capable of providing support to newcomers, much like what NFTcommunity does for new NFT collectors.
There you have it.
While the experts we have heard from are optimistic about the potential of web3 games, it is important to remain cautious and well-informed.
The future of this sector is still largely unwritten and will undoubtedly depend on various factors, including technological advancements, regulatory environments and player adoption rates.
Regardless, it's clear that web3 gaming has triggered a conversation about decentralization and the potential for a more player-centric model in the gaming industry.
Whether this will become the dominant model in the future is yet to be seen. But there's much to look forward to as this narrative unfolds.
As always, the journey is as important as the destination. And the journey toward a more decentralized gaming landscape promises to be a fascinating one.
Speaking of decentralized, I’d be remiss if I didn’t turn your attention to opportunities in DeFi my colleague Chris Coney has uncovered.
He’s developed a strategy that targets DeFi yields in any market. For example, one of his most conservative positions recently yielded 18% APY using only stablecoins.
That’s double what junk bonds are yielding and 56x higher than the average bank money market account!
You can learn all about this new strategy in Chris’ recently released Superyield Conference. I urge you to watch it now before it goes offline.
Best,
Jurica
