Cryptographic technology.

Video games.

Combine them together, and what do you get?

Blockchain video games.

Blockchain or web3 video games are a different breed than your Marios and Street Fighters and Last Of Us'. They're hybrid chimeras that blend aspects of economics, psychology, community building, and game theory. And they're still incredibly young. But if they want to live long enough to influence the next innovation in gaming, they must be adaptable.

At this nascent stage of development, web3 gaming is like a newly born giraffe; wobbling around on shaky, bony legs, in danger of toppling over at every turn.

No single web3 video game has cracked the code of what will make them successful. No project has ironed out a legitimate road map to longevity. They're all still trying to figure it out.

"Adapt or die," is an old adage in the business world, and it works remarkably well here. We're in uncharted territories regarding video games using currencies tied to real-world value or NFTs built upon digital scarcity. So web3 gaming better tread carefully, or they might just fall facefirst into the dirt.

The How

How are web3 games able to show off such flexibility? What tools are they employing that give them an advantage over their dated and antiquated web2 counterparts? I bet you can guess.

Alpha, Beta, Omega

There is no web3 game in existence today that would be considered 'finished' by web2 standards. Web3 doesn't ship games the way web2 does. There's no final wrap party where the team can kick back and reflect on what good work they've done.

In web3, the show never stops.

But that's because, in web3, the show hasn't even started.

Web3 games liberally--and I mean really liberally--use alpha and beta testing to fine-tune their games. Web2 games test their game as well, of course they do, but it's a wildly different sequence than web3.

Games take years to make, and web3 is no different. But where web3 differs from web2 is that their alphas and betas are much more inclusive to a community of adoring fans. They don't just hire people to play the game and give feedback. They don't pick up any old gamer off the street and ask how they think the project should be improved. They seek out dedicated, intelligent, compelled gamers to generate ideas. They foster communities of highly engaged members willing to contribute however possible.

Speaking of...

Community? We Prefer To Call Ourselves Family

Thanks to platforms like Discord and Twitter, web3 game developers constantly interact with their community members. And those community members are often highly passionate about the project, willing to invest $$$ and time to see the vision succeed. Those are the exact people developers want and need to give valuable feedback.

And if projects want to weed out the fans from the fanatics, they drop NFT collections or add leaderboard challenges to their Discords. Who better to ask how to improve your game than the people willing to do whatever it takes to play it?

The Why

Okay, so web3 video games are built differently than web2 games. They leverage web3 technology and community-building tools to generate valuable feedback from their fans.

But... why? Why go through all the trouble? Why not just do what web2 does? After all, if it ain't broke, don't fix it!

But that's the problem. It is broken.

Fixing Web2's Mistakes

You spent three years building a game, from idea to ship.

And within 24 hours of it dropping, fans discover crippling framerate drops, glitches galore, and it's infested with bugs. You force your devs to work overnight on a 12-hour shift to get out a patch.

Phew.

Except in those 12 hours, gamers found 100 other issues. Not to mention your most dedicated fans were left out of the building process. If you'd included them, you might've learned they hate the protagonist, the duel mechanics are redundant, and why'd you cap it at level 66?

If only you'd found a way to tap your most dedicated fans to help you avoid those mines. If only you'd been shipping alphas and betas of the game to large groups of early adopters to find out where bugs are hiding.

Sustainable, Impactful, And Any Other Buzz Word You Can Think Of

Web2 games are built, shipped, and that's that. The hope is they're made so well that gamers are still speedrunning and exploring them for years after launch. But in web3, if the game isn't still getting attention years after launch, they can alter it. They can adjust mechanics to make it more modern--or whatever constitutes modern in 10 years--more competitive, more casual, or more mobile friendly.

In Summation

Being adaptable allows one to adjust to any given threat that arises. Being flexible allows one to pivot toward whatever needs the most attention.

As web3 gaming continues to grow and establish itself as a major contender in the entertainment space, it shouldn't be looking at policies to set in stone. It should highlight its adaptability and capability to address whatever problem may appear in the future.

Think I’m wrong? Think I’m right? Weigh in the conversation yourself and let’s chat about the future of web3 gaming.