Thread by @amytongwu

1/ Have been thinking about the future of web3 gaming after a recent trip to the Nordics (Slush), home to some of the world’s greatest gaming companies (Supercell, King, Minecraft..). Web3 was on everyone’s minds. Then the Ubisoft incident happened, a repeat of the Discord one.

2/ Ubisoft’s announcement of its NFT launch, the first of the AAA publishers, was met with strong player negativity. Ubisoft quickly took down the launch video. For every tweet in support it looked like 10 against. Why did this happen and can this be overcome?

https://twitter.com/sixkeysunlocked/status/1468277606629920776

3/ First, while Ubisoft was brave to dive into NFTs first, web2 companies making the conversion should embrace the web3 ethos of community involvement, and engage them earlier. Why is this actually good for gamers? Neither they nor employees like being surprised.

4/ Second, most gamers in the world don’t understand how blockchain works, so disclaimers absolving responsibility to asset loss without explanation is scary for players and will be received poorly.

https://twitter.com/bobbydigitales/status/1468335617796804608

5/ Third, many gamers equate NFTs = bad, an association born out of frustration with scams and money-grabbing schemes, floor NFT prices driven up to unaffordable levels, environmental concerns, and a longtail of other reasons.

6/ These are legitimate concerns. Some like the environmental one can be solved today by education around proof of stake chains like Solana, Polygon, future Eth 2.0 and others. Others require an evolution from “gamefi” to “games”.

7/ Some celebrate sky-high in-game land sales and 100x token launch/NFT floor prices. I’m concerned. This has set up players, many new to web3, to be disappointed by inevitable depreciating asset value, or unable to afford in-game items. This is not the democratic spirit of web3.

8/ Artificial scarcity and game assets owned by a select few is antithetical to games trying to bring fun to the billions. Instead of celebrating token/NFT prices, we should celebrate player engagement and the creative uses of blockchain to better the player experience.

9/ Phase 1 of web3 gaming has been P2E, characterized by earning. Most will not be sustainable. Neither game nor tokenomics have been set up to be. There is so much capital in guilds, however, that P2E will likely continue with players cycling in/out as yield farmers do in DeFi.

10/ Phase 2 of web3 gaming will be defined by great games with embedded blockchain tech designed to enhance the player experience. They may be born from an established game publisher, or an indie studio. From the gaming establishment or not.

11/ As mobile F2P was originally seen with derision by the hardcore AAA while today the biggest and fastest growing gaming segment, the same may be for web3 games. New web3 game developers will be converted and new gamer audiences created.

12/ Gamers have grinded, played, traded, and bought digital assets the last 2 decades. I remain optimistic that they will be excited to own them too, as they can with web3.