Despite misgivings in some quarters, it’s clear that the games industry is now in transition from a centralised web2.0 world to a more decentralised Web3 universe.
“It’s been a 12 month process for us to think this through,” explains Samir Agili, co-CEO of US publisher Tilting Point, which has just announced its own web3 strategy.
Together with partners Polygon and Stardust, Tilting Point plans to release 10 Web3 games over the next two years with existing games Astrokings, The Walking Dead: Casino Slots, and Chess Universe its first announced titles.
“We were asking ourselves ‘Is the technology ready?’ and ‘Is the audience large enough?’,” Agili adds.
But the success of games such as Axie Infinity during 2021 and fast-maturity infrastructure has convinced Tilting Point blockchain is now an important technology for developers to adopt.
A new way to play
“Our mission remains to change developers’ lives and we’ve been surprised at the level of demand we’ve experienced when we’ve been talking internally about it,” Agili says.
“At the moment too many pure blockchain games are just designed to be cash machines. We’re adding web3 to make those games more enjoyable.”
Samir Agili
With that in mind, he’s keen to point out that Tilting Point isn’t pivoting to Web3 at the exclusive of all else. “We’re taking a gaming standpoint and bridging games to web3 by adding a layer to existing titles,” he says.
“At the moment too many pure blockchain games are just designed to be cash machines. We already have a lot of great F2P mobile games with great economies that people love to play. We’re adding web3 to make those games more enjoyable.”
Taking a wider view, Agili expects Web3 to become more important for games: “The sector is far from being mature but I think over the next two to three years, we’ll see these games being adopted by the mass market.” he states.
“For liveop products with large audiences it will become weird for gamers not to own their in-game items. We’re very bullish about the sector.”
Tilting Point’s vice president of growth, Enric Pedró, recently shared his thoughts on the console operators Microsoft and Sony’s potential moves into ground the mobile industry is well-versed in: integrating ads into F2P games.
Data fiend and editor-at-large Jon Jordan has been writing/speaking about the games industry since 1999. He's always been a man who's a step ahead, gaze firmly fixed beyond the horizon, rarely content with the here-and-now. So he's particularly pleased the rest of us are finally catching up – but he knew we eventually would.
