Game studio founders Yat Siu and Johnson Yeh believe more people will use Web3 next year, and blockchain games are the reason why.
Crypto market hype and the “commercial launch” of several highly anticipated blockchain games could attract “tens of millions” of gamers to Web3 by 2024, a Web3 Games executive said.
“2024 is the year of growth in terms of getting people to use Web3,” Yat Siu, co-founder of gaming and venture capital firm Animoca Brands, told Cointelegraph.
According to DappRadar, there have been around 1 million (or more) unique active wallets playing Web3 games every day over the past three months. However, Siu believes that number could increase by as much as 100 million next year.
“Many upcoming games were in alpha or beta stages in 2022 and 2023 and are now all set to have commercial releases in 2024.”
Siu expects the casual Web3 gaming space, which includes mobile games, to be the most active, speculating that “tens of millions, maybe even 100 million gamers” will play these less intense games.
He also expects Asia to “lead the way” as it has been more receptive to GameFi’s technology and related non-fungible tokens (NFTs) than in the U.S. Crypto regulations in Asia are also “more welcoming and open,” Siu added.
Johnson Yeh, founder and CEO of gaming company Ambrus Studio, hopes that Web3 games “can really take off and gain widespread adoption with the help of the bull run,” which is expected to begin in 2024.
"The biggest potential is in the free-to-play space, selling skins," he said, pointing to the free-to-play Counter-Strike series as a model where skins have sometimes sold for six-figure sums.
“These skins are on smart contracts, they are verifiably unique, and then it allows streamers, esports players, celebrities to co-create and aggregate skin revenue with fan bases,” Ye said.
Meanwhile, Sebastien Borget, co-founder of The Sandbox, told Cointelegraph that he expects user-generated content (UGC) to become a big theme for Web3 gaming next year.
Borget said UGC has already grown on traditional gaming platforms like Roblox and Fortnite’s Unreal Editor, which allows anyone to create assets and games in Epic Games’ flagship title.
“Decentralized platforms are uniquely suited to empower creators and reward them for their contributions through Web3 technology.”
Looking forward to the celebrities in Web3 again
While many celebrities and brands lost money for supporting cryptocurrency-related projects during the last bull run, Siu said the trend will continue, just not in the United States for the time being.
“If Americans think crypto is a scam, then it’s fair to say that the English-speaking world thinks it’s a scam, too. But when you go to places like the Middle East or even France, Paris feels like NFTs are crazy lately.”
Once U.S. law is clear, celebrities will return in droves, he said.
Yeh of Ambrus Studio agrees but says celebrities are more cautious when it comes to endorsements and higher profile stars won’t be willing to take the risk.
“A lot of celebrities are backing these NFTs to make a quick buck,” he added. “I think in the next bull run, the power of celebrities will diminish, but they will still play a very, very important role.”
Borget added that many brands and celebrities are finding novel ways to engage with their audiences through UGC-driven entertainment.
“They see the value in that regardless of what the Web3 market conditions are,” he said.
Apple's VR headset is a potential 'game changer'
Speaking about the Metaverse, Ye said that tech giant Apple's upcoming virtual reality headset, the Apple Vision Pro, "could be a game changer for the virtual world," and said it could sell in large volumes, which could help drive down hardware costs.
“The more people adopt, the more the cost will go down, overcoming one of the biggest barriers to entry for consumers,” he said.
While Meta is also making waves in the VR space, releasing its new Quest 3 headset this year, Yeh believes the company “doesn’t have the same iconic brand image as Apple that people are willing to pay a huge premium for.”
“Apple is probably one of the only companies in the world that has the scale to really drive down the cost of hardware.”
Apple says the headset will ship in early 2024 and have features typical of its competitors, including eye and hand tracking, and early demos show it to be more of a mixed reality device than a pure virtual reality headset.
