A New Era of Ownership Is Changing the Nature of Competitive Games

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Gam­ing psy­chol­o­gists have long known that com­pe­ti­tion enhances moti­va­tion and engage­ment in game­play. It is why so many devel­op­ers aim to serve their most com­pet­i­tive play­ers by adding com­plex­i­ty and high­er stakes rewards to their upgrades. 

But like all things, these upgrades suf­fer from the law of dimin­ish­ing returns. In-game incen­tives grow stale and play­ers ven­ture off for new challenges. 

Co-CEOs of Pole­mos Sascha Zehe and Richard McLaren both believe that blockchain-based asset own­er­ship is a solu­tion to this prob­lem. Their new Game­Fi plat­form, Pole­mos Forge, is help­ing all gamers make bet­ter use of this indus­try. They have an edu­ca­tion­al hub that helps play­ers take advan­tage of new oppor­tu­ni­ties and will soon release an asset lend­ing and asset stak­ing library. 

“For me, own­er­ship is the impor­tant part. Own­er­ship of assets is what’s going to dri­ve the growth for web3 games com­pared to Web2 games,” Zehe said. 

The impact on the competitive gaming industry

This type of own­er­ship unlocks a new dimen­sion of incen­tives for com­pet­i­tive gaming. 

“If a play­er wins a weapon or badge that they are able to store in a self-cus­tody Web3 wal­let, then they get access to an end­less list of ways to lever­age that reward,” McLaren said. 

While the val­ue of this type of own­er­ship is not lim­it­ed to com­pet­i­tive games, many promi­nent game devel­op­ers are using it in com­pet­i­tive environments. 

Illu­vi­um, a AAA Web3 game still in devel­op­ment, has released Are­na (Pri­vate Beta 2), which will allow play­ers to bat­tle against each oth­er using assets and avatars (Illu­vials) they own. 

This com­pet­i­tive ele­ment is the first step of their full IBG (Inter­op­er­a­ble Blockchain Game) launch and is already amass­ing a mas­sive social following. 

Shrap­nel, anoth­er AAA-qual­i­ty blockchain game, is also inte­grat­ing esports func­tion­al­i­ty in its own P2P (Peer-to-Peer) com­pe­ti­tions and play­er-cre­at­ed tour­na­ments. With the use of Shrapnel’s pro­fes­sion­al-grade cre­ator tools, play­ers can design their own com­bi­na­tion of weapons and cus­tom skins to use in match­es against oth­er play­ers. These are high-stakes bat­tles because play­ers can either cap­ture their opponent’s loot or lose everything. 

While there is poten­tial for dis­rup­tion, both McLaren and Zehe explained that it is hard to mea­sure indus­try-wide impact at this stage. “These fan­tas­tic games,” McLaren explained, “are still in devel­op­ment.” There need to be more active users to gauge how much trans­for­ma­tive val­ue NFTs can offer high-qual­i­ty games. 

Zehe added, “We need bet­ter games (like these) in Web3 that can lever­age the val­ue of blockchain ownership.” 

When asked if Game­Fi has the poten­tial to shake up esports, McLaren said, “Not yet, or cer­tain­ly not out­side the inher­ent game­play and spec­ta­tor appeal for the games. There might be inter­est­ing mod­els for crowd­sourc­ing prizes and tour­na­ments, or for team spon­sor­ships, but we haven’t seen any­thing there yet.”

The fact that Game­Fi is still in its infan­cy could be inter­pret­ed as good news for investors and play­ers. It offers them the time to learn and inves­ti­gate the games and strate­gies that could pro­vide the most opportunity. 

Correcting the mistakes of the past 

McLaren empha­sized the impor­tance of eval­u­at­ing in-game rev­enue mod­els in rela­tion to the qual­i­ty of game­play. “If there isn’t a bal­ance of incen­tives, then games will strug­gle to acquire users beyond pure prof­it-mak­ing motives.” 

For exam­ple, Axie Infin­i­ty, a play-to-earn video game, has strug­gled to retain play­ers dur­ing the glob­al reces­sion and cryp­to win­ter. In Feb­ru­ary 2022, the val­ue of the in-game cur­ren­cy dropped by over 90% from its all-time high in July 2021, caus­ing many play­ers to stop play­ing the game.

But it is more than just a mat­ter of imbal­anced finan­cial incen­tives. When asked why Ubisoft strug­gled to launch its Quartz NFTs, Zehe said, “the indus­try as a whole suf­fers from a brand­ing prob­lem, and it’s called NFTs.” 

For those unfa­mil­iar with the launch, in late 2021, Ubisoft intro­duced a new ini­tia­tive called Ubisoft Quartz. It aimed to incor­po­rate non-fun­gi­ble tokens (NFTs) into games by turn­ing in-game items into col­lectible play­er-owned assets. The first game to receive this treat­ment was Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Break­point on PC. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the ini­tia­tive saw lack­lus­ter sales and back­lash from the tra­di­tion­al gam­ing community.

McLaren explained that, “call­ing a game item an NFT is unnec­es­sary jar­gon and what’s more, a some­what dis­cred­it­ed ‘dodgy’ term. Adop­tion is going to need to be gen­tler and at play­ers’ own pace.”

He added, “NFTs will even­tu­al­ly make their way into AAA games, but they will most like­ly not be called NFTs. And the move­ment will be grass­roots led.”

Facil­i­tat­ing com­mu­ni­ty man­age­ment and gam­ing lore is an impor­tant aspect of Pole­mos’ work with AAA-qual­i­ty blockchain games like Illu­vi­um and Shrapnel. 

Accord­ing to Zehe, “The open­ness of these com­mu­ni­ties to col­lab­o­ra­tion varies depend­ing on the stage the game is in. In the ear­li­er stages of devel­op­ment, it may be more dif­fi­cult to col­lab­o­rate, but as the game expands its expo­sure, it can lead to more oppor­tu­ni­ties for part­ner­ships and mar­ket­ing efforts. These can include things like triv­ia con­tests, live game ses­sions, give­aways, AMAs or the cre­ation of edu­ca­tion­al content.” 

In the case of Illu­vi­um, the team even con­duct­ed an NFT col­lab­o­ra­tion, in which they announced a Pole­mos-brand­ed Cos­play Illu­vi­um Stab­bin NFT ear­li­er last year. 

Pole­mos is also mak­ing great efforts to build out its own platform’s lore, fan­ta­sy, uni­verse, and back­ground sto­ries. They are find­ing cre­ative ways to weave their sto­ry­telling into the work of their part­ners. This type of cre­ative col­lab­o­ra­tion pro­vides the back­bone of gam­ing inter­op­er­abil­i­ty – and can ulti­mate­ly open gam­ing NFTs to a new world of utility.

This con­tent is spon­sored by Pole­mos.


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