Gaming may seem like a natural, endemic partner for blockchain technology and cryptocurrency partners, especially as we see the room for play-to-earn engagement and innovation in the gaming environment. However, to date, it’s a vertical that has seen strong resistance, from casual to competitive and everything in between – at least, almost.
We’ll take a look at the latest insights report from esports organization NRG, which suggests the industry could probably come around as crossover audiences grow.
The push in gaming: can it overcome obstacles?
Gaming has made progress, but has seen great resistance around crypto overall. The sticking points have been more rigid around casual gaming than around competitors, though. With few exceptions, major gaming developers have largely avoided or denied any interest or immediate movement around NFTs, crypto, and the like.
However, in the competitive arena – that hasn’t stopped esports organizations from taking steps, such as 100 Thieves, from creating their own NFTs, which they distributed for free on the Polygon blockchain. This has also not stopped organizations from partnering and pairing with blockchain and exchanges for formal relationships. Even the flagship organization TSM locked in a naming rights deal with crypto exchange FTX last year, rebranding the organization as ‘TSM.FTX’.
And what about play-to-earn? Well, it’s too early to say now. Axie Infinity, long viewed as the most respected and evocative play-to-earn title in the space, is struggling, as the game’s native currency, $SLP, is now under a penny. Only time will tell whether play-to-earn can truly be implemented in a long-term sustainable way.
Esports organization 100 Thieves released a championship NFT for free on the Polygon (MATIC) network last year - and Polygon continues to have a gaming and broader sport focus. | Source: MATIC-USD on TradingView.com
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What can we learn from the NRG survey results?
Let’s take a look at some of the key points that have been highlighted from NRG’s survey data – which has a small sample size of around 1,300 respondents, and targeted men 18-34 (likely to be a saturated demographic in the crypto space).
NFT: The survey shows that 3 out of 4 gamers have crypto, or have crypto – just 1 in 4 have NFTs. Additionally, while play-to-earn still needs to show its viability over the long-term horizon, the majority of gamers surveyed (57% to be precise) agree that play-to-earn is good for gaming. .
So what’s on hold? Gaming audiences still rely on NFTs, and at times, obvious shillings, ragpulse, and other negative and often egregious behavior than we often give credit for are acting as a bigger deterrent. Most gamers do not buy NFTs because of a lack of confidence or belief in the usefulness. While most respondents considered themselves to be ‘environmentally conscious’, environmental concerns were only 5th among the top concerns surrounding buying NFTs – suggesting that Ethereum-Options (or perhaps Ethereum’s Proof-of-Stake) A belief in migration) exists. The minds of gamers who are paying attention to the NFT space.
Metaverse: Defining the ‘metaverse’ is clearly a task in itself (we personally recommend Matthew Ball’s ‘The Metaverse Primer’ to help), and the results of the NRG investigation’s survey validate this perspective. Huh. 7 out of 10 gamers surveyed believe VR is the ‘metaverse’, and show interest in gaming in VR – possibly encouraged by the increasing amount of VR streams on platforms such as Twitch.
Meanwhile, these respondents do not see sandbox games – such as Roblox, Fortnite, etc. – as part of the Metaverse. We’ll let you decide for yourself.
web3: The hottest topic over the past year around the technology has been the ideological emergence of Web 3, a pervasive idea of the way the Internet works like a paradigm that transfers ownership rights from conglomerates to creators. This kind of change will certainly take time, regardless of the level you believe we are today – so the impact it has on the media and how we consume content, culture and information is largely immeasurable. Is.
However, this gaming audience is no stranger to the topic. While study results suggest that gaming audiences are twice as likely to be familiar with Web3-related terms, a vast majority of this audience – 3 out of 4 respondents – cannot describe what Web3 specifically is. It’s a logical conclusion: the Internet wasn’t particularly easy to explain in the ’90s either.
Overall, we are still painting this space extensively every day. As is often the case, the market will determine the use case and demand, and innovation will respond accordingly. If you blink, you may miss it.
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Featured image from Pixabay, Charts from TradingView.com The writer of this content is not associated or affiliated with any of the parties mentioned in this article. This is not financial advice.