One of the major themes of GamesBeat Summit 2023 was the potential of blockchain and Web3 games — and one of the panels from the first day discussed what the next successful Web3 game will contain. It also covered the challenges a Web3 game will face before it can succeed. GamesBeat’s Dean Takahashi moderated the panel. Urvit Goel, VP and head of global business development at Polygon Labs; Serhat Maraşlıgil, COO of Boomland; and Peter Kieltyka, CEO and co-founder of Horizon spoke on the panel’s topic.
All of the panelists discussed some of the advantages of developing for Web3 and the benefits it offers the gamers. Kieltyka said that Web3 unlocks new forms of any game and changes the gameplay experience. He added, “Why do players buy items? They buy items right now for utility, status and the pleasure of collecting. With the introduction of Web3, you look for additional motivators: This thing might have value, or there might be a resale market. Or there’s a persistent profile, a history of everything you’ve done.”
The challenges of building a Web3 game
Maraşlıgil said that one of the challenges for developers is that some of the fundamentals are different between Web2 and Web3. New developers might not necessarily know to account for certain new aspects of Web3.
“The most important thing is to understand there will be a community aspect, or a player-run economy aspect of things if you’re going into Web3. Even if you’re not going to create a marketplace or list your tokens, the technology allows for it. Someone will sell your NFTs — how will your economy behave when you have those actors? This comes with the scaling issues. Is your economy going to work with 5,000 players and 5 million players at the same time? Is it scaleable? These types of problem are there to be solved in quick succession.”
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Goel said as well that Web3 faces a perception problem. “We believe gamers do like the concept of NFTs. What they don’t like is how it’s been portrayed … What is the utility for the player and are you bringing more value to the player? For those that are still stuck on that, what is the value that the technology can bring to players that they will, over time, value more than what we have today?”
Kieltyka mentioned that blockchain still faces many conundrums, from creating a seamless user experience to developers understanding how best to market their collectibles. But for these problems he adds, “The good news is they’re all solved, and they’re all just getting better.”