GameFi airdrops are here to stay, but they won’t save a bad game: Execs
Game studios will continue to use airdrops and other incentives to attract players, despite protests from some players over “tokenomics,” industry executives said.
“It's a very easy way to gain market share,” said Kieran Warwick, founder of game studio Eluvium, in an interview with Cointelegraph.
However, games that fail to capture the fun or gameplay aspect of the game can still fail, Warwick said.
“The problem with that is if you're using it as a marketing tool and you don't have a good product to back it up, it's really bad for retention.”
Shi Haiwei, founder of venture capital firm Longhash Ventures, also stressed the importance of making games fun.
“Crypto is very good at getting users because of the incentives – we have airdrops, we have mechanics for income and speculative elements, but to keep the players there, you need to play the game.
Axie Infinity was one of the best success stories among blockchain games so far. However, the $650 million bridge hack has, among other things, made it harder for developer Sky Mavis to retain users after the last bear market.
“Games that have sustainable economics, the right release schedules, attract the right players and encourage the right gameplay are the games that will survive,” Wei said.
Not everyone is looking to make money
Warwick admits that token incentives will inevitably attract airdrop farmers rather than real players, but growing the player base is a necessary evil.
“It also gives us the attention we need from people who are niche players,” he added.
His comments come as Illuvium released 200,000 ILV tokens for roughly $25 million over a six-month play-to-airdrop initiative.
The airdrops will be collected in Illuvium Arena, Overworld, Zero and Beyond, which will be launched in IMX – Ethereum's NFT-focused Layer 2 – at the end of May.
Meanwhile, Yield Guild Games CEO Gabby Dizon argues that while airdrops can play a big role in accelerating GameFi adoption, “not everyone is necessarily looking for a financial return.”
You might be buying an asset that gives you social status the way you are buying an expensive car or watch or clothes.
GameFi standards still have a way to go.
Dizon and Warwick believe GameFi is still about 14-15 years behind traditional gaming — but they expect that gap to close quickly.
“The pace of innovation in blockchain is much faster than what you'd see in the traditional gaming space,” Warwick explained, noting that many of the people at Blockchain Studio come from majors who have built games with “millions and millions of players.”
“So we're not starting from scratch, but at the same time, we're building an IP that's going to take a lot of time—like the universe that you have, letting people fall into the story. Creating and how the characters interact with each other.”
“All these elements cannot be created overnight,” he added.
Related: ‘FOMO' once drove GameFi's funding, but VCs say this time is different
Developing an IP can take up to six or seven years, Warwick said, adding that major game studios are about halfway through the process.
Until then, we're waiting for that dominant GameFi project to push the industry forward with traditional games like Clash of Clans and Candy Crush in the early 2010s, Dixon says.
Yild Guild Games has built a decentralized network of gaming guilds that aims to bring blockchain games and players together in one community and hopes to see a game of this scale in the future.
The future of gaming is user-generated content. The trend of players expanding their own characters, their own levels, and their favorite games will never stop.
But for the digital economy to take off, you need technologies that ensure creators own that… pic.twitter.com/S9guU0IGG5
— Sebastien (@borgetsebastien) March 20, 2024
Wei, however, is confident that the GameFi industry will finally see a AAA-standard game released in 2024.
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