Web3 gaming is a ‘rocket ship’ set for extinction, say industry experts
From small children to adults, people love to play video games. Some of them play for hours on their mobile phones, while others spend thousands of dollars to customize the ultimate gaming PC. Either way, video games' ability to connect people around the world through play, cooperation, and competition is evident.
The rapid growth of the Web3 industry has provided another way for people around the world to connect and collaborate. So it seems logical that these two worlds would collide.
On the latest episode of Cointelegraph Central, host Jonathan DeYoung talks to executives from five game-focused projects — Shrapnel, Ex Populus, Saga, HyperPlay, and MetalCore — to get an overview of how Web3 games are evolving in the current context. blockchain game and future expectations
A web3 game won't start unless the games are clashing.
One theme repeated by many game executives is that in order for Web3 games to go mainstream, they must have frictionless gameplay that can be enjoyed by both crypto fanatics and skeptics alike.
Mark Mercury, Chief Blockchain Officer of Shrapnel – the upcoming extraction shooter game – shared the perspective he and his team are taking on the upcoming title. “If I wanted to play this game and it was so good, I didn't even have to know anything about Web3,” he said.
But if I believe in DeFi and I want to link my assets in and out, and I want to skin this and get loans through the DeFi protocol and everything else. And to do this.”
If you want to play a good game – and I think that's what a lot of us want to do, just bring this core – you have to make sure you have something that's extremely low-friction for people. here you go”
It's important for players who want to dive into the crypto space to be able to do so with ease. DeYoung asked JacobC.eth, founder and CEO of HyperPlay—a Web3-enabled games store with integration with MetaMask—about a recent meme circulating in the crypto community on X, where the user plays a shooter and every shot is fired. MetaMask requires a pop-up and transaction confirmation. The meme was theoretically poking fun at the potential clash with blockchain-based games.
This is the future of gaming – every shot is on the chain pic.twitter.com/eFavYC0t4D
— Nick Greenawalt (@motionbynick) May 15, 2024
According to JakobC.eth, online games can easily avoid this, for example by using account abstraction. This, he explained, “allows the user to fund an in-game wallet and have their transactions automatically approved or up to spending limits and limits that the user sets.”
“Typically, most games only call wallets when buying or selling in-game assets,” added JacobC.eth. But for games with onchain logic like Pirate Nation or DeFi Kingdoms or Dark Forest, those games use account abstraction wallets to automatically approve the player's transactions.
Is Web 3 gaming the key to crypto mass adoption?
On a recent episode of Cointelegraph's Decentralized Show, Animoca Brands founder and chairman Yat Siu shared his belief that gaming will lead to mass adoption. So, do other game executives share this view?
“We feel that if blockchain technology is really going to hit the mainstream, it will be in gaming,” said Toby Batten, founder and CEO of Web3 Game Studios. “Gaming obviously has a large audience of billions of players worldwide, and the use of blockchain technology is a perfect fit for gaming.”
“Right now the rocket ship is about to take off on the platform, and you can see the smoke billowing out from under it.”
Rebecca Liao, founder and CEO of Saga — a scalable layer-1 blockchain custom-built for game developers — agrees, but with some caveats. “I think that's true,” she said. “Is it a first? Obviously not. I mean, we've seen cryptocurrency hit Web3 for the first time as a product in itself.” […] But in terms of real mass adoption – so people are using crypto on their phones, not realizing their crypto – that's it, I think. And that comes from play.
In May, Liao told Cointelegraph magazine that major game studios are looking into blockchain but that it is “very quiet” and mostly “internal experimentation.” Studios “don't want to let their players know they're working on it,” she said, and many players still believe “Web3 Gaming is all about cheating and crappy games.”
Related: Web3 and Gaming: Unlocking Real Value for Users
Liao isn't the only one who believes despite the rumors before we see more AAA games involving crypto. I think what it takes is games like Us and Shrapnel and others that are a little lower budget than AAA, a little like AA, but good and high quality. It's just as good as AAA games,” argued Dan Nicolaides, chief technology officer for the upcoming mech fighting game Metalcore.
“You know, for the narrative that those have to exist in the market, that ‘Web 3 games suck' goes away. And it should continue to show that enough of these games can be made and that successful, quality games can come out of Web3 devs. And I think that's when we get out of the mainstream.
To hear more from executives from all five gaming projects about the prospects and challenges of mass adoption for Web3 games, listen to the full episode hosted by Cointelegraph on Cointelegraph's podcast page, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or your podcast platform of choice. . And don't forget to check out Cointelegraph's full lineup of other shows!
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