Depending on who you ask, blockchain gaming is either the next big thing in Web3 or an odious trend that companies should not indulge in.
The space is divided and it can be challenging to determine an objective temperature. Minecraft banned NFTs from their iconic title, GameStop opened an NFT marketplace, the WAX blockchain has become a hub for Web3 gaming, and Axie Infinity is doing its best to bounce back from a comically painful $615 million hack launched earlier this year. took place. Even two of the most popular NFT based games, Decentrallandand The sandpitstruggling to break 1,000 active monthly users.
Regardless of how an individual or organization feels about blockchain-based games, they are likely to have a significant impact on the future of the industry. The long-term changes that NFTs will bring to the industry are yet to be seen. But we can take some educated guesses.
The Future of Blockchain Gaming
To better understand the state of the blockchain gaming space, nft now spoke to Şekip Gökalp, the core strategist at Web3 gaming startup Infinite Arcade. The startup is producing a metal layer that introduces metaverse dynamics such as NFT ownership into existing game titles, and they are partnering with game studios to make their existing titles more profitable.
Gökalp is also the CEO and co-founder of the mobile game publishing platform Coda, which launched Infinite Arcade in February after spending nearly all of its resources preparing for the future of blockchain gaming. The Coda platform has become so popular that it hosts more than 15,000 mobile game developers.
“We’ve embarked on a soul-searching quest,” Gökalp said of the company’s recent pivot to blockchain gaming. “We’ve tried to understand: What is our role in a very late stage of the mobile gaming market where there is little room for disruption and innovation?”
The answer? Respond to Web3. Gökalp dabbled in Bitcoin in 2014 after being introduced to crypto through friends and later began investing in early-stage Web3 tech startups in 2016 after selling an ad technology company he had successfully built. In 2021, when? Axie Infinity and The sandpit made waves in the play area, he felt like getting as close as possible. “At some point I realized I was spending as much time exploring these games for fun as I was running a business,” Gökalp said. “That led to Infinite Arcade.”
“Owning stuff that comes out of a game you play has the greatest chance of making things mainstream in the long run.”
ekıp Gökalp
It’s telling that a highly successful free-to-play gaming platform has essentially gutted its legacy business to dive into blockchain gaming. When asked whether IA is betting on the future of that industry, Gökalp was blunt: “100 percent.”
It’s a steadfast pro-blockchain perspective to take in a field of wildly differing opinions about the technology’s prospects in the gaming world. But Gökalp is not bothered by even the more outspoken anti-blockchain opponents out there, as he believes the disagreement is healthy and no different from the world of crypto itself.
“There is so much in both camps,” Gökalp thought. “There’s all kinds of crazy tribalism. Also within crypto there is no unity. So I think it’s healthy for people to speak out and criticize things. But to say that a specific technology isn’t good for A, B, or C use cases is a pretty general statement and often just wrong.”
Gökalp believes the genie is out of the bottle with blockchain technology. It’s just not possible for the technology to disappear altogether. Whether people like it or not, Web3 will have its place and use cases for games.
Ownership, not P2E use cases, will drive mainstream adoption
Gökalp agrees with skeptics that developers of play-to-earn games should focus more on “play” and less on “earn” if they want to attract users. The current focus on financialization use cases, he says, is also likely a natural part of Web3’s evolution in the gaming space.
“The fun core of a game is what really makes the game a game,” emphasized Gökalp. “But new possibilities with crypto – actual ownership of assets and tokens and all of this happening on-chain in real time without anyone needing permission – which opened up a very obvious use case for financialization for a lot of things. And I think that in hindsight it’s also pretty natural, and maybe in a few years, when we look at this early exploration phase where the money is emphasized, that’s going to feel quite normal.
However, Gökalp stressed that the studios that make the best games are the ones that win in the gaming markets. By definition, this means that the best games are the ones that keep their players coming back.
“Social media is owned by companies that will only suffer from true decentralization. And they know that.”
ekip Gokalp
“The use cases of financialization are niche,” Gökalp said. “And it won’t be the mainstream use case. I think ownership will be mainstream. Owning stuff that comes out of a game you play has the best chance of making things mainstream in the long run.”
Gökalp also mentions that, in conversations with game developers, venture capital funds and investors over the past six months, it is clear to him that the projects receiving support not those who focus on that financial aspect. The games with basic Web3 principles seem to be the most attractive in that regard.
Web3 has to face its technical problem
Like many in the Web3 space, Gökalp believes that the technical barrier Web3 poses to the average person is one of the main things preventing its mainstream adoption, be it gaming or any other space.
“People need a seamless, invisible, fully abstracted experience, whether they are indirectly or directly touching a blockchain,” explains Gökalp. “For them, it should be as easy as logging into Spotify with your Facebook login, and everything else is taken care of in the background. And only when you want to extract assets, which requires an immutable chain, you may need to be aware that you are moving money or assets and you could lose them.”
Gaming, says Gökalp, is the most likely candidate for helping people get Web3. As one of the world’s most popular forms of consumed entertainment, it’s more likely than any other industry. It is also inherently open to the principles Web3 is built on, compared to other industries.
“I am not an idealist, but I think they are games,” Gökalp now told nft. “They are much more decentralized, much more bottom-up, creativity driven, with the right type of mind and the right type of people. Social media is owned by companies that will only suffer from true decentralization. And they know it. And they don’t want that. And it’s obvious they’re trying to get ahead of it and try to own it. I respect the conviction. But it is clear that we know from their past behavior what the most likely future behavior of those companies will be. I hope they don’t win Web3 either.”
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