Road to Success

Blockchain games started a new paradigm in the gaming industry by adding a sense of ownership to game items. This allowed players to monetize in the free markets, disrupting the value distribution model in traditional video games. 

The ability to earn via play has catapulted blockchain gaming to the forefront of Web3. It has helped onboard millions of gamers playing different games spread across blockchain ecosystems. The shift to decentralized gaming has also benefited developers. They earn additional income sources through NFT sales and royalties on secondary marketplaces. 

While this paradigm change brings so much value to gaming, there are concerns about how sustainable it can be. This article will explore how games will evolve to address the shortcomings of the first wave of blockchain games. 

What Was Missing in the First Era of Blockchain Games 

The first wave of games couldn’t sustain growth because of the over-emphasis on the financial aspects of play-to-earn gaming. Players were grinding non-stop to maximize in-game rewards and generate profits by flipping NFTs. And when the rewards dried up, the games fell apart in terms of active users. 

P2E games also had high entry barriers with NFT investments, limiting wider participation. Even though gaming guilds emerged to provide scholarships, earnings distributed to players were not equitable. In some cases, the players had to give away more than 50% of their earnings to the guild managers. 

Besides good gameplay and sustainable rewards, blockchain games miss a smooth onboarding experience across blockchains. It is challenging for a non-crypto gamer to navigate through exchanges and wallets to self-custody game assets and start playing in a few simple steps. Further, players couldn’t move their assets interoperably because games lacked multi-chain presence. 

That being said, the road ahead for Web3 gaming looks promising as games will fix these existing flaws and continue to evolve to attract mainstream gamers. Let’s understand what this evolution looks like. 

How Games are Evolving to Drive Mass Adoption

The second-generation blockchain games are improving in two main areas: gameplay and accessibility. By addressing the gameplay issues, P2E games draw more mainstream interest from players looking to have more fun over earning token rewards. This also encourages player engagement for developers, making games more sustainable in the long run. 

Regarding accessibility, games now lean towards a free-to-play model with low entry barriers on multiple chains. They are also enabling the interoperability of assets to transform games into metaverses. One such game that went from an ordinary game to a metaverse is MegaCryptoPolis. 

Launched in 2018, MegaCryptoPolis started as a decentralized strategy city-builder game where players could craft immutable game assets on their land plot and earn valuable in-game rewards. So far, players withdrew 8400+ ETH and 57+ million TRX in rewards, proving MegaCryptoPolis has a sustainable revenue model. 

After launching three cities on three blockchains, MegaCryptoPolis evolved into a metaverse called MegaWorld. As a metaverse, MegaWorld also enables social networking for players where they can join meet-ups and explore different buildings in the city together. 

With the gaming space moving in a similar direction as MegaWorld, it is more likely players will stick around blockchain-based games and find value in having true ownership of in-game assets.

Future: Web3 Gaming Can Be Immune to Industry Setbacks 

When games completely pivot to play-and-earn with gameplay and user experience as priorities, there are no limits to what blockchain games can achieve. The adoption will be fast because gamers already know about in-game assets and understand their value. They simply don’t want to deal with the technical complexities of crypto. Once that friction is removed, players will continue playing regardless of what’s happening in the markets, making them immune.