Developers of Web3 are having to change direction due to pushback from gamers. CEO of Community Gaming Chris Gonsalves suggests a new way to do things.
Web3 gaming is becoming more popular, but it hasn’t found a market outside of the crypto community yet. Developers who try to add digital assets like NFTs have gotten a lot of pushback from gamers, who see them as a sneaky way to make money in an industry that is known for nickel-and-diming players.
“There’s some bad branding around NFTs in general,” Chris Gonsalves, CEO of Web3 esports platform Community Gaming said. “Game developers should switch to calling them digital assets, digital collectibles, [or] legendary skins. Gamers are used to buying skins; they’re used to buying items.”
Community Gaming and Game7, a DAO that focuses on Web3 games, are working together to put on the 3XP Gaming Expo in Los Angeles on June 8 and 9. It will happen before the E3 convention, which the video game industry usually holds from June 13 to 16.
Community Gaming is the official esports collaborator of the 3XP Expo, which will also involve Ava Labs, Polygon Labs, Coinbase, Magic Eden, Yield Guild Games, MoonPay, and Phantom, as well as the developers of the Web3 games STEPN, BR1, and http://EV.io .
Gonsalves says that the slow growth of Web3 games is due to low-quality games withflawed tokenomics and even outright scams that harm the reputation of the industry.
“Let’s just be real: a lot of these games sucked, they had promises they couldn’t live up to,” he said. “We had the profile pic craze confusing the issue, and gamers thinking that NFT tech is purely pictures of expensive animal art.”
Gonsalves thinks that the future of Web3 games will be bright as more traditional game studio veterans, such as those from big publishers like Activision Blizzard and Riot Games, join the space.
“They know what it takes to build a game,” he said. “They know how long it takes, and so they’re not calling them NFTs and they’re not leading with ‘rah rah blockchain’ and tokenomics.”
In Gonsalves’s opinion, these studios are producing entertaining games that can stand toe-to-toe with the likes of Valorant, Call of Duty, and Hearthstone.
Avalon Corp, a Web3 gaming company founded by video game veterans, raised $13 million last month from Bitkraft Ventures, Hashed, Delphi Digital, Coinbase Ventures, and others. Electronic Arts founder Trip Hawkins joined Games for a Living to develop blockchain-based Web3 games.
Gonsalves may observe a shift as more seasoned game developers enter the Web3 world and create immersive games that prioritize fun over economics. If players choose not to participate, digital asset ownership and token rewards are irrelevant.
“[Gamers] are not going to appreciate that if the game’s not fun,” Gonsalves said. “So the focus has really shifted to higher quality games [with Web3 features] that are purely additive to that experience.”
Content Source: decrypt.com
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