Gaming is a dynamic industry that’s constantly gaining popularity. The NFT market is equally dynamic. What will happen when the two unite? We talked to Adrian Krion, co-founder and CEO of Spielworks, about the potential of this fusion.
- What’s the biggest advantage of marrying NFTs and video games?
In general, gamers have a high affinity for digital assets as they are typically collecting and using digital items. Trading such assets (more or less “illegally”) has been a huge market for years. Now, with NFTs, gamers get to own these items beyond the individual game, which results in a huge relief of the frustration that’s tied to quitting a game. Up till now, all the time and money investment disappeared when quitting a game. With NFTs, gamers can cash out (some of) their investment, allowing them to spend more in each individual game.
- Integrating technology that enables player-owned economies into video games has been slow. Do you believe that’s about to change?
Definitely. On one hand, blockchain-first games have been picking up thanks to the progress with Axie Infinity and the like. On the other hand, the boom this year has put NFTs on the radar for most traditional gaming companies. Those have an interest in integrating NFTs in their existing games, some in a more lightweight manner, some more deeply. The current development will severely accelerate the number of NFT-related games coming out within the next 6 months.
- Did Spielworks face any challenges integrating Wombat into the Ethereum ecosystem? If so, what were they?
The biggest challenge was – and still is – to offer a great experience to our users whenever they use the Ethereum ecosystem. It’s not only the high gas prices but also confirmation times and the fact that users of Ethereum apps need a certain understanding of the underlying technology in order to use it effectively and not run the risks of losing some of their money, e.g. because they’ve included too many decimals in a token transfer and their transaction fails because it ran out of gas.
- What would you say the secret of your success is in terms of your NFT rewards program? What sets it apart from analogical programs?
I would claim that there isn’t any product like Womplay in which gamers get rewarded with NFTs for playing traditional, AAA mobile, and desktop games. We’ve also seen that – at least to gamers – NFTs pose a much stronger incentive than monetary rewards, which also explains the dramatic shift which is underway in the gaming industry right now. We’re helping traditional gamers transition into the blockchain and NFT space without risking an expensive investment up front.
- What would allow an NFT game to truly break into the mainstream?
Right now it seems that while mainstream gamers play (traditional) games for entertainment, most blockchain gamers play (blockchain) games because they expect to make money. Of course, in the long run, the majority of players will not (= cannot) make a positive return on their game investment, as the money other players make needs to be put in by somebody. I think that in order to reach the mass market, an NFT game needs to be easily accessible (unlike having to spend $1000 in order to be able to do anything in the game) while paying attention to the underlying economics of their NFTs. The latter is of course easier to do with that paywall, but I think it’s pretty obvious that no game with a $1000 paywall will reach tens of millions of active users in the long run.
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