Why crypto games suck
Blockchain and NFT technology open up a wide array of possibilities in the gaming sector. Truly owning in-game assets, being able to trade and sell them for real money is a vast improvement on what gamers experience currently. Yet, they somehow prefer a world in which they spend countless hours and vast amounts of money without the possibility to ever recover any of it. The gaming community still looks very critically at blockchain gaming. Let us explore why they think so and what we can do to get them on our side.
Why blockchain games can’t excite the gaming community
The discussion about blockchain gaming with members of the crypto community or members of the gaming community couldn’t be more different. Evidentially the two communities focus on very different things. Whereas the crypto community looks at a play to earn game, judging it by the earning and investment potential, the gaming community judges any game by the experience it provides. Only a small percentage of players turn to video games with the goal of earning money. A vast majority of gamers belong into what we call the play-for-fun category. When coming home from school, university or work, they look to dive into a virtual world that excites them and gives them a great experience. If a game can’t provide this, it doesn’t matter how much money they could earn with it, the gaming community won’t be interested. Sadly, as a gamer myself, I’m yet to find a blockchain game that truly excites me.
Creating a great game requires either a lot of capital or a good deal of thinking outside the box to find unconventional solutions. The gold standard of gaming are triple A titles from famous publishers like Blizzard, Rockstar or EA games. We imagine how awesome it could be, if Grand Theft Auto would be based on a blockchain. Imagine you could actually own the real estate, cars and boats you buy in Los Santos. Imagine the jobs you do online would earn you actual crypto tokens instead of worthless in-game currencies. Would be awesome, right? So, that’s what blockchain game developers are trying to build. To create Grand Theft Auto it takes seasoned developers at Rockstar games years of work and many millions of capital. Even with significant VC funding, crypto start-ups usually lack the resources and experience to create a game of GTA’s quality. Consequently, the teams make sacrifices to realize their projects anyhow. Mostly graphics and animations suffer, but also content and storytelling elements often come short. What we end up with are usually worse copies of our favorite games — which simply won’t excite anyone.
Another approach we can commonly see is creating games similar to what we played as kids. It might seem cool to have a game that looks and feels like Pokémon. Most of us played that game as a kid and foster nostalgic feelings about it. The problem is, younger generations might not have that connection and see those games as outdated shit. And even us that played those games, get bored after a couple hours when the nostalgia wears off.
There is no doubt that eventually we have triple A titles running on a blockchain. Some crypto gaming developers claim to be working on such games right now. While they use the latest engines to provide high-end graphics, a game needs more to convince. It remains to be seen if they can compete with the seasoned developers and publishers. It’s well possible that we have to wait until the big gaming corporations adopt blockchain technologies to see great triple A titles in crypto gaming. Without the gaming community screaming for blockchain gaming though, big publishers lack incentives to do so. The traditional microtransaction model generates much more revenues for them than an NFT based game would. Every time a player buys an in game asset from another player, that is potential revenue lost to the publisher. Hence, major publishers likely will stay away from blockchain technology until they’re pressured into it.
How we can excite the gaming community
It’s time to stop with the doomsday talk. Because there are a lot of reasons to be positive about this space if we approach it correctly. While triple A titles might be the most well-known, they’re far from the only successful games. Without relying on expensive graphics and mechanics, developers of indy games managed to be successful in this competitive space. The mobile gaming sector is full of such games and even on consoles we can find titles like the hugely successful Fortnite.
Indy game developers already have been fighting for years with the same struggles that blockchain gaming developers face right now. To solve the issue they have adopted creative solutions like using unique graphic styles, creating novel battle systems, offering unseen strategic depth or absolutely nailing storytelling to captivate players. Indy developers recognized their strength. Without a major publisher and their shareholders breathing down their neck, without the risk of losing countless millions if the game flops, they can take risks and try something new and different. The results are some real gems. If you’ve ever played The Banner Saga, you know what I mean. Players grow tired of playing the same game — repackaged with the latest graphics — over and over again. By taking some risks and with novel approaches, some indy games managed to fill that void and find a great amount of excited players.
Making blockchain and NFTs a major stay in the gaming industry is no easy feat. I argue that the best way to attack this problem is going step by step. We don’t need high-end triple A titles right away. By copying the indy game developers’ strategies, thinking outside the box and finding novel solutions to create great gaming experiences, we can set foot in the gaming industry despite budget constraints and other disadvantages we might face. As more and more gamers get familiar with blockchain technologies and start to appreciate their advantages, pressure on major developers to implement it themselves increases. If the next Fortnite will be built on a blockchain, it will catapult us straight into the business plan of every major publisher. But even without such explosive success, a steady stream of great Indy games can pave the way for successful launches of blockchain based triple A titles in a couple years.
Once we manage to adopt the actual gaming community, our struggles to create sustainable in-game economies will be resolved by itself. We will get deeper into the creation of such sustainable economies for blockchain based games in a future blog article. Make sure to follow us here and on twitter to be notified when we release it or join our discord server to participate in the discussion.
Written by: Lukasinho
