Web3 games won’t exist in 5 years. $656K Needed to Promote Top Crypto Game: Web3 Gamer

The Web3 game is over. Long live the game: SKALE CEO

Ethereum scaling network Skale CEO Jack O’Holleran is confident we won’t hear any talk of Web3 games in the next five years.

“I feel very strongly that the term Web3 gaming will no longer exist,” he told Web3 Gamer (hence the column’s name change by 2029).

He doesn’t expect it to fail due to technical issues. Instead, he thinks it will become a victim of its own success.

“The reason is that once we all successfully integrate the value proposition of blockchain into games, every game in the world will start to utilize it much better,” he explains.

O’Holleran likens the term “Web3 games” to the early Internet days when people awkwardly used words like “Internet companies.”

“Nobody says that anymore because technology is part of every industry,” he laughs.

So, if all the big gaming companies use Web3 technology for their games, this term will start to lose its relevance.

“What is a Web3 game, and if every single game has some component of blockchain built into it, what doesn’t?”

But now the term is still relevant.

SKALE Network is a layer 2 Ethereum scaling solution that claims to provide users with a smooth, lag-free gaming experience and can support up to 700 transactions per second.

It hosts popular Web3 titles such as multi-level motorcycle racing game MotoDex, sports metaverse Gamify, and side-scrolling blockchain platformer Untitled Platformer, all of which have seen millions of downloads in the past year.

O’Holleran believes that the focus on growing the Web3 gaming community is misplaced and that the project should focus on a wider audience.

He believes the biggest obstacle for traditional gaming companies adopting Web3 technology is trying to keep users in their walled gardens by not offering them any ownership benefits.

“If you have a game right now, you have to work hard to maintain the market. Otherwise you will lose too much money. We don’t want people to go on social media and trade gaming profiles or sell profiles on Craigslist,” he explains.

Building a Web3 game? A$1 million prize to be won at Australian Crypto Convention

This November, venture capitalists will gather at the Australian Crypto Convention to select Web3 companies in which to invest A$1 million (about $656,000) during a “Pitch Fest” competition, much like Shark Tank.

Convention director David Haslop advises developers to ensure high-quality visuals to increase appeal.

“You need really sharp graphics. I think using Roblox kind of graphics or pixelated graphics would make it a lot less interesting,” Haslop tells Web3 Gamer.

Luke Lombe, founding partner of Faculty Group, is raising the majority of the funding. He says he’s confident “GameFi will have a big moment later this year” after years of subpar launches.

“A lot of the problems with gaming stem from the fact that most games released over the past few years have simply been of poor quality,” explains Lombe.

Michael Prendiville, co-founder of venture capital firm JellyC, agrees, saying this is because a lot of the wrong projects were funded during the Web3 gaming hype last cycle.

“There is no doubt that the Web3 game was ahead of the game in 2021. Investors were putting money into projects that only had concepts,” explains Prendiville.

Prendiville isn’t investing more money into Web3 games, as several projects it invested in in 2021 are just now “coming to fruition.” One of them is the role-playing game Dark Times, scheduled for release in the third quarter of 2024.

But if so, he says his focus will be “on the team, sponsors, community and gameplay.”

Lombe believes the standard for the project is now higher due to the recognition that “the best AAA games and experiences in the traditional gaming market should be indistinguishable.” Another thing to note is that not all games need to use blockchain.

“Product and utility come first. Before you start, make sure you really need Web3. “Many of the projects you build on Web3 don’t actually need to be built on Web3 at all,” says Lombe.

“Many traditional gamers don’t like Web3 and find it gimmicky or disruptive to gameplay.”

For the uninitiated, cricket is an English game played in many Commonwealth countries such as Australia and India. Think of the bat and ball setup in baseball. However, the game moves so slowly that the game lasts for 6 hours each day, over 5 days.

It can get pretty boring.

But even though I usually struggle with cricket, I decided to give Meta Cricket League, a Play-to-Earn blockchain game, a try.

Playing games earns you JT Points, which you can use to purchase NFTs and level up on the Jump Marketplace. NFTs include famous cricket players and autographed bats. Some trading cards sell for up to $99 million, while others can be purchased for $1 or $2.

The game had a few tedious glitches, but it attracted more attention than a Test match.

The controls developed by Jump.trade are really difficult to get used to. I tried batting for the first 20 minutes but kept missing every ball. I am not that It’s terrible to play…

The initial tutorial was pretty vague, so I had no choice but to just wing it.

The screen kept showing embarrassing warnings like “too late” or “you missed the ball”, which kept me stuck trying to succeed, but the controls were the real problem.

I thought I had to flick my finger on the screen to hit the ball, but it turns out I was way off the mark.

After about 20 minutes of playing, I finally figured it out. The trick is to aim by holding down the left control and pressing the middle right button.

I got my first 6 points! That’s where the ball flies over the boundary.

However, the game feels a bit sloppy. Most tennis and bowling games are played by sliding your finger, but this feels like a pinball version of cricket with all the buttons.

On the positive side, the game works well with quick matchmaking. I got into the game quickly, and even when people quit on me (probably because I wasn’t playing well), I was always immediately put into another game.

If you are already interested in cricket, you might have a different experience. I’m a soccer fan, so even an average soccer game would be a lot more fun for me.

Other news

— Web3 gaming platform Immutable has launched “The Main Quest,” which it claims is “the largest Web3 rewards program ever.”

— MetalCore’s gaming company Studio369 expects to gain 1 million new players thanks to new partnerships with Pixelmon and Mon Protocol.

— InfiniGods, the gaming company behind Kings of Destiny, has raised $8 million in funding to support the project through the remainder of 2024.

— Magic Eden launched its highly anticipated Runes platform last week to coincide with the massive Bitcoin halving event.

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Ciaran Lyon

Ciaran Lyons is an Australian cryptocurrency journalist. He is also a stand-up comedian and radio and TV presenter for Triple J, SBS and The Project.