Surprise! Gaming is the most likely candidate to bring people to Web3
Depending on who you ask, blockchain gaming is either the next big thing in Web3 or an abhorrent trend that companies should avoid indulging.
The space is divided, and it can be challenging to take an objective temperature on the matter. 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 that took place earlier this year. Even two of the most popular NFT-based games, Decentralized countryand The sandboxstruggling to break 1000 active monthly users.
Regardless of how any individual or organization feels about blockchain-based games, they are likely to significantly impact the future of the industry. The changes NFTs will bring to the industry in the long term remains 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 with Şekip Gökalp, the core strategist of Web3 gaming startup Infinite Arcade. The startup produces a meta team that introduces metaverse dynamics such as NFT ownership into existing game titles, and they work with game studios to make their existing titles more profitable.
Gökalp is also the CEO and co-founder of mobile game publishing platform Coda, which launched Infinite Arcade in February after devoting almost all of its resources to preparing for the future of blockchain gaming. The Coda platform has become so popular that it hosts over 15,000 mobile game developers.
“We started a soul search,” Gökalp said of the company’s recent pivot to blockchain gaming. “We tried to understand: what is our role in a very late stage of the mobile game market where there is little room for disruption and innovation left?”
The answer? Fine on Web3. Gökalp dabbled in Bitcoin in 2014 after being introduced to crypto by friends, and later began investing in early-stage Web3 technology startups in 2016 after selling an ad tech company he had successfully built. In 2021, when Axie Infinity and The sandbox making waves in the game room, he felt eager to get as close as possible. “At some point I realized that I was spending as much time exploring these games for fun as I was running a company,” Gökalp said. “That’s what led to Infinite Arcade.”
“Owning things that come out of a game you play has the best chance of making things mainstream in the long term.”
Şekıp Gökalp
It’s telling that a highly successful free-to-play gaming platform essentially ditched its old business to dive into blockchain gaming. When asked if IA is betting on the future of that industry, Gökalp was simply: “100 percent.”
It’s a strong pro-blockchain perspective to take into a field with wildly varying opinions about the technology’s prospects in the gaming world. But Gökalp isn’t bothered by even the more vocally anti-blockchain naysayers out there, as he believes the disagreement is healthy and not unlike the crypto world itself.
“There is so much out there in both camps,” Gökalp reflected. “There’s crazy tribalism of all kinds. In crypto, there’s no unity either. So I think it’s healthy for people to speak up and criticize things. But to say that a specific technology is not good for A, B or C use cases, is a fairly general statement and very often just wrong.”
Gökalp believes the genie is out of the bottle with blockchain technology. It is simply not possible for technology to disappear completely. 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 monetized games need to focus more on “play” and less on “earning” if they want to attract users. The current focus on use cases for financialization, he believes, is also probably a natural part of the development of Web3 in the gaming area.
“The fun core of a game is really what makes the game a game,” emphasized Gökalp. “But new possibilities with crypto — actual ownership of assets and tokens and all of this happening in real time on the chain without anyone needing permission — that opened up a very obvious financial use case for a lot of things. And I think it’s also quite natural in hindsight. Maybe in a few years, when we look at this early exploration phase where the emphasis is on money, it will feel very normal.”
However, Gökalp emphasized that the studios that make the best games are the ones that win in the game markets. By definition, this means that the best games are the ones that keep players coming back.
“Social media is owned by companies that will only suffer from true decentralization. And they know it.”
Şekip Gokalp
“The financialization use cases are niche,” Gökalp said. “And it won’t be common use. I think ownership will be mainstream. Owning things that come out of a game you play has the best chance of making things mainstream in the long run.”
Gökalp also mentions that speaking to game developers, VC funds and investors over the last six months, it is clear to him that the projects receiving support are not those that focus on the financial aspect. The games with basic Web3 principles seem to be the most attractive in that regard.
Web3 must face its technical problem
Like many others in the Web3 space, Gökalp believes that the technical barrier that Web3 presents to the average person is one of the main things preventing its mainstream adoption, whether in gaming or other areas.
“People need a seamless, invisible, fully abstracted kind of experience, whether they touch a blockchain indirectly or directly,” Gökalp elaborated. “For them, it has to be as easy as logging into Spotify with your Facebook login, and everything else is taken care of in the background. And just the moment you want to withdraw assets, which requires an immutable chain, then you potentially have to be aware that you’re moving funds or assets and you could lose them.”
Gaming, says Gökalp, is the most likely candidate to help onboard people to Web3. As one of the world’s most popular forms of consumed entertainment, it is simply more likely to do so than any other industry. It is also inherently open to the principles on which Web3 is built, compared to other industries.
“I’m not an idealist, but I think there are games,” Gökalp told nft now. “They’re much more decentralized, far more bottom-up, creativity-driven, with the right kind of minds and the right kind of people. Social media is owned by companies that will only suffer from real decentralization. And they know it. And they don’t want it. And it’s clear they’re trying to get ahead and try to own it. I respect the conviction. But obviously we know from their past behavior what the most likely future behavior will be from these companies. I hope they don’t win Web3 as well.”
