Gaming in Web 3.0: Understanding the Potential of Blockchain Gaming

The Intersection of Blockchain and Gaming

As gaming continues to grow in popularity and embed itself as a dominant medium, so too are in-game experiences evolving, becoming increasingly social and dynamic playgrounds to spend time with friends. As a result, games today are embracing customizability and personal expression, commercializing experiences through in-game purchases such as cosmetics, weapons, and emotes. While today’s in-game assets are fixed purchases, tomorrow’s will be able to be traded, sold, earned, and even perhaps made interoperable across game worlds.

In this new vision, massive economic opportunity could be realized across an entirely new sub-industry ready for the taking, and blockchain could serve as the fundamental technology that enables asset ownership, tradability, and interoperability. However, unlocking these opportunities will take serious investment in both capital and creativity to drive innovative use cases that entice and excite players. It will also require earning player trust through fair, transparent, and sustainable business practices. But most of all, it will need to prove that blockchain can bring unique new experiences that are as authentically fun for the player as they are profitable for organizations.

As part of a three-article series, we will dive into each layer of blockchain across business, technology, and humanity.

• In our first article, we introduce the topic of blockchain gaming, where it plays within the market today, and what potential models could emerge in the future.
• In our second article, we cover the ecosystem of blockchain gaming, unpacking the key players, where they play in the developer and player journeys, and what impedes the technology from being executed today.
• In our final article, we explore the value blockchain gaming can bring, the trust it will need to establish, and what will need to be true to form a viable, feasible, and desirable industry that puts the player first.