From more gaming firms joining in aiming to benefit from the relevance of popular concepts, different sector experts shared their insights on forthcoming NFT gaming trends.
Despite the bullying that gamers exert on traditional gaming firms cautiously investing in nonfungible tokens (NFTs), the executives working within the NFT gaming sector are hopeful that more traditional gaming companies will jump into the space in 2023.
From mainstream gaming firms coming in attracted by the relevance of nonfungible token gaming models like move-to-earn (M2E) and play-to-earn (P2E), different industry professionals shared some deep insights on NFT gaming trends for this year.
The co-founder of Sky Mavis, Aleksander Larsen, said that it is only a matter of time before the big players enter the industry. Sky Mavis is the developer of the P2E game Axie Infinity. But, Larsen thinks that these companies will hold off until they see a game that will generate billions in revenue.
Besides game-focused studios, Larsen believes tech giants like Google will get involved, highlighting how Google Cloud also operates a Ronin Network validator. He added:
“I’m excited to see big tech giants like Google and Microsoft get even deeper into the blockchain gaming industry.”
When he was asked about the relevance of P2E in 2023, the Sky Mavis executive admitted that the model is now flawed. He commented:
“As the pioneers behind the first play-2-earn game, I can say with confidence it does not work in its current state. Games need to be fun first with a solid economy backing, which can enable some players to earn.”
The senior business director at BNB Chain, Zoe Wei, reiterated Larsen’s thoughts. As mentioned by the executive, more experimentation and analysis are needed to make the token economies of most of these games sustainable. Wei said:
“The focus was too strong on the earn mechanism and not enough on the enjoyability of games.”
Despite all that, Wei still believes that both P2E and M2E concepts will be highly relevant in 2023, although there have to be some significant improvements.
Besides the NFT gaming models, Wei also highlighted the topic of traditional game producers coming into the industry. Wei is convinced that blockchain technology and nonfungible tokens have “undeniable benefits” for gamers and game producers. Wei added:
“We have already seen countless gaming studios venture into web3 over the past year, and this is a trend that will continue into 2023.”
In the meantime, a partner at Bitkraft Ventures, Carlos Pereira, also believes that there will be more gaming businesses coming in 2023. He mentioned:
“In 2022 we saw many funding rounds related to spin-off type projects from traditional US and Europe gaming businesses and we expect the trend to continue, with some high-profile public launches in 2023.”
Pereira also said that while Asian gaming companies are quite public in their cryptocurrency push, western companies are also coming in, but are “being more cautious with their PR.” But, the executive thinks that the trend will continue as the year progresses.
When asked about play-to-earn, the executive insisted that the initial iteration of the concept needs to get phased out. He stated:
“We hope this first implementation of play-to-earn is buried for good.”
Pereira believes that such a concept does not make any sense as a business model since it had no way of attracting gamers who would pay to play.
With regards to other NFT gaming trends in 2023, the co-founder of NFT game Banksters, Alex Altgausen, stated that community members this year will have higher Standards. As mentioned by Altgausen, 2021 and 2022 worked like filters, exposing NFT games that wanted to exploit users. He explained:
“The era of anyone with a cute website and a game promise has ended.”
It means that 2023 will have NFT game investors that do not come in easily and can check assets, partnerships, product development, and media footprints before investing money into blockchain games.
