I remember coming back from school and booting up Prince of Persia. The sand-driven mysterious world elated me, the gameplay excited me, and the story gave me an escape. Gaming evolved with time, and as the concept of microtransaction became the norm, I was happy that I didn't have too much time for gaming anymore.
However, as NFTs and crypto became popular and people started to discuss how they could make gaming better with a new brand of monetization, the crypto enthusiast in me found himself drawn to gaming once again, seriously once again. "It could be fun", I believed. Being in the crypto writing space for more than a year, I know what NFTs and crypto can do for gamers within the community. But games aren't on the same page as me, and their reasons are more than legitimate.
The Reasons Gamers Hate Crypto - Are These Reasons Valid?
Go to a video about NFT gaming on YouTube, and you will find two classes of people. One side has those who extoll the virtues of P2E gaming, hurling insults at "pleb" Web2 gamers - the other class of people - who say that NFT gaming is not fun and nothing more than a scam.
The funny part is that it is the Web2 gamers that make a lot of sense.
Crypto enthusiasts often counter their arguments with words like "you don't know what an NFT is", and "just reading a bit about NFTs doesn't mean you know about NFTs". These crypto bros don't realize that learning a whole new technology with a fair bit of reading material just to enjoy "gaming" isn't enjoyment at all; it is a chore.
Let us take a look at the Web2 side of the aisle and learn why gamers have a disdain for NFTs.
NFT Games are Not Fun
Players' first and most common argument is that NFT games aren't fun. Like it or not, this is a valid reason. While games like the Sandbox and Axies Infinity did shoot up in popularity in 2020 and 2021, their audience was very niche (and still is). Only a bunch of crypto enthusiasts enjoy it, and none of them can be called gamers in a conventional sense.
Axie Infinity is basically a turn-based game with sub-par gameplay, and the Sandbox is akin to Minecraft without any of the fun parts. Crypto bros laud these games for doing the bare minimum - working - which is not what the gamer wants.
It would have been good if these two games were the only ones with gameplay that doesn't entice gamers, but the games that are coming out now aren't any better. Gods Unchained is derivative, Decentraland is a crowded world with nothing to do, and The Walking Dead Empires feels like it would turn me into a zombie while playing it.
"The web3 gaming era has just started. Give it sometime. It is unrealistic to think that Web3 games will hit the ground running after just landing a bit", asserted a crypto lover on an NFT gaming video.
But gamers don't have time. Playing highly graphical, fun games with better gameplay has given them a unique expectation. They don't care about the underlying technology of an NFT. What they only want is for the games to be fun, and none of these NFT games are.
Most NFT Games Turned Out to be Unfinished Rug Pulls
"We have hired members from AAA gaming studios to help build this game", is a marketing line many NFT game developers use to entice gamers. They present players with a half-backed demo consisting of the best elements of an NFT game (that often turn out to be rendered animation) in a bid to gain some goodwill among gamers - and failing at it.
Why do they fail? Because most of them are unfinished products. Every whitepaper you will find about most of these NFT games comprises highly complicated Jargon and a robust roadmap that they probably never would finish, and they didn't.
The crypto space is full of projects that didn't see the light of day. While most are ready to blame the 2022 winter on it, the truth is that much of what these games were trying to do is not possible through the technology we have today.
The commodification of Gaming is Not Received Well by Gamers
One of the biggest issues in gaming has been the commodification of gameplay. People just want to sit back and relax when they play games, and most of them are single players. Vintage reported that 57% of players prefer single-player over multiplayer games. They believe that introducing NFTs and crypto into the mix will commodify their fun time, turning gaming into a chore.
Many argue that by integrating games with NFTs and cryptocurrencies, key aspects of a game, like gameplay, story, graphics, and soundtrack, will be sidetracked. It might seem like a pessimistic view, but when you look at the whitepaper of some NFT games, you'll see the majority of their sections dedicated to tokenomics and their earning mechanics. They often don't have more to say about gameplay other than claiming that "even Web2 players will appreciate this game".
Wrong Marketing Tactics
When a standard game is marketed in the Web2 space, the only thing talked about is the game itself. The gameplay becomes the highlight, and the graphics become the icing. These factors are used to entice gamers. They are the reasons that pre-orders often skyrocket after E3s happen. Even games like Diablo 4 focus more on gameplay, which is surprising, considering it is one of the most over-monetized single-player/multiplayer games in the market.
Web3 gaming, however, doesn't work like that. "Blockchain", "NFTs", and "real-ownership" are the buzzwords that get the most focus, and no emphasis is paid to the gameplay or its quality. Merely stating the gameplay is "high-quality" and can potentially compete with games in the Web2 space doesn't suffice. Gamers are tired of hearing the same sermon again and again. The Web3 gaming adverts don't offer anything new, and most of their content feels like marketing on crack.
Expensive Entry Barrier
One of the lowest-priced Axies on Axie Infinity is worth $0.13 ETH, which equates to more than $200. The lowest price Axies means getting a character with the lowest number of traits and not many abilities. And considering it takes real money to even upgrade, the cost of playing Web3 games keeps piling up. Also, when the game skyrocketed in popularity, the amount of money that could be made from the system was reduced. Gamers felt - and rightly so - that they were spending too much and getting too little.
Such reasons have driven gamers away from the crypto arena. However, is it the end of all crypto games? Not necessarily.
Can Crypto Enthusiasts and Gamers Ever Come on the Same Page?
Despite its shortfalls, the Web3 gaming space has a lot of potential. It still has an interesting outlook on games, and tying playing with earning mechanics has many upsides. However, the state that Web3 gaming is in now is not one in which gamers and crypto enthusiasts can be even on the same page.
Many improvements must be made first. The technology needs more refinement, and the marketing model needs a better touch. Web3 games must be gameplay-first, and gamers must be convinced there is nothing wrong with commodifying a fun pastime. Cost-related barriers must be removed, and blockchain education must be more streamlined.
All of these tasks are very difficult and could take years to complete. Once it happens, there is a large possibility that it will get popular among gaming influencers, which may help bolster its NFT gaming's reach among regular gamers.
