Gaming industry to have a ‘blockchain-connected’ future, studio execs say

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As blockchain slowly finds its way into the video gaming industry, sector veterans and non-fungible token (NFT) blockchain executives believe that there will be more connections between games and blockchain networks in the future.

In a Cointelegraph interview, David Kim, VAX Head of Publishing and Michael Rubinelli, VAX Head of Game Studio, shared their insights on NFTs, the metaverse, and blockchain gaming.

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According to Kim, despite the low search interest on Google, the association with games, the metaverse, and NFTs isn’t dead. “On the VAX blockchain, we saw a doubling of the number of sales transactions at the beginning of Q4 2021, and it has remained elevated since then,” he said.

“I’m not sure if ‘hype’ will go back up, but we believe that long-term, interest and engagement with Metaverse and NFTs will grow ad infinitum as usability grows and security concerns are addressed.”

On the other hand, when asked about the future of the play-to-earn (P2E) gaming model, Rubinelli compared the P2E implementation to the adoption of free-to-play and microtransactions within gaming. After more than 20 years in the gaming industry, the gaming executive thinks a similar pattern is afoot.

“We strongly believe that there will be some element of play-to-earn or play-and-earn in most games over the next few years. Most of these will be blockchain-connected but not run entirely on blockchain.”

In a 2021 report published by the Blockchain Gaming Alliance, a survey revealed that many respondents shared the same sentiments as VAX executives when asked how the blockchain industry could leverage blockchain over the next two years.

Source: Blockchain Gaming Alliance 2021 Survey Report

Talking about the challenges facing the blockchain game, Rubinelli mentioned that scalability is still a major concern. “At the moment, the biggest challenge is the lack of ability for most blockchains to scale,” he said.

Connected: Report: Axie Infinity will account for nearly two-thirds of blockchain-game NFT transactions in 2021

The gaming giant noted that Layer2 solutions can’t scale unless they’re “100% dedicated to a single game like Ronin for Axi Infinity.” He also mentioned the incident that while the game Sunflower Farmers’ user base grew, “it came to a standstill.”

Regarding esports, David Kim noted that most games playable on Wax are “too simple to be esports friendly.” However, the WAX ​​executive said there are sports in development that could be adapted into esports.

“Several blockchain-connected games are currently in development to monitor esports. These include card battlers like Hearthstone like Skyweaver, battle royale like Hodlgod, and team-based first-person shooters like The Forge Arena.

Kim said esports games need more time to develop. According to Kim, only nine months have passed since Alien Worlds, Splinterlands and Axi Infinity, which shows that blockchain gaming could attract a lot of players. “You can’t develop the sophisticated game mechanics needed for esports in that time,” he said.