Adopting Token-Based Gaming
How traditional brands might just be the way in which users get comfortable with token-based gaming.
To level-set, token-based gaming refers to games which deploy blockchain as a core component of the underlying game’s design, mechanics, and economy.
With that definition, we can include many different types of games: mobile, desktop, AR, VR, video, mini-games, fantasy games, loyalty schemes, etc. It’s important to understand that token-based gaming refers to more than just integrating blockchain with a video game — this understanding opens a framework for where we can experiment with token-based gaming concepts.
But first, let’s briefly touch on the state of the token-based gaming market. Depending on your vantage point, you may have a different opinion, but here are my thoughts:
The rapid rise of IGOs and blockchain-based games was not aligned to with the incentives of traditional gamers, and thus, adoption suffered.
High quality games take a ton of money and time to produce well and the overwhelming majority of blockchain-based games just weren’t there.
Both the user experience and the underlying technology / protocols are still immature for AAA rated games.
The overall state of the web3 market (not good) and the real adoption numbers of wallets/tokens (not high) also do not help this space.
While there is still much activity in the blockchain gaming space, it’s appeared to have slowed down. However, I think there are other ways that education, comfort, and adoption of token-based gaming concepts can come adopt while the gameplay side of true video games is sorted.
Enter traditional brands.
Above, I talked about the different elements of token-based gaming: tokenomics, token-based game design, and token-based game mechanics. Brands, with their large existing customer bases, can build gamification into their consumer interaction and engagement. Brands can leverage the innovation coming out of the token-based gaming space and create easy, less complex style games to encourage brand interaction and dwell time.
Some opportunity areas include brand activations (e.g., Vodafone) and loyalty programs (e.g., Starbucks). In simple consumer applications, brands can layer in the different concepts: how many tokens, how to earn tokens, how to redeem, what token types, what token-based rewards, how do I interact with the game, etc.
Brand activations and loyalty schemes may end up being the easiest to adopt and have the widest appeal, and this is where we may see more individuals get comfortable with the concepts of token-based gaming, allowing the industry to push into other opportunity areas like building fantasy games, immersive worlds, and true video games using these concepts.
To have true token-based gaming, I believe there is a lot of work to be done (on the UX, the gameplay, aligning incentives with gamers, and the underlying technology). However, I don’t think the gaming industry is going away and I don’t think blockchain is going away, so I am excited for the future.
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