Panel: Beyond the Hype - Web3 Gaming's Comeback Trail

[Music] [Music] [Music] we have a lovely panel coming up next uh this panel uh is going to be talking about uh web Free's uh web free Gaming's comeback Trail and whether you know web free is beyond just just hype which I think I think it is especially when you're considering what how Dubai is uh really especially Dubai is uh championing web free technology so I would like to welcome to the stage uh Vincent uh from Nifty craft Alfredo from

ready games Network manav who is in stealth mode right now uh mamt from uh digilabs and uh balal jasa from dmcc hello everyone thank you for uh hanging on so late uh till the end of the last day of the show thank you for being here I have a great roster of co-panelists let's start by 30 seconds introduction each um and then we'll dig into you know the resurgence and return with a Vengeance of web 3 games Bel first the elevator pitch right good two floors two floors I'm Bel joa I'm the director of ecosystems at uh dmcc dmcc is a leading international business district with over 24,000 companies from all sectors around the world uh we have sector specific ecosystems like the crypto gaming and very soon the AI Center very happy to hear hi guys I'm manov uh 7 years uh

making games everything from console Facebook iOS premium uh since 2016 I've stuck to mostly real money gaming and my last tint was uh building a gaming app called Rush from scratch and taking it to half a billion dollar in revenue and now I'm starting again from scratch uh trying to build a real money casual gaming business hello everyone um Alfredo ARA I am head of VI defa marketing at ready GG myself I I started in gaming back in the late 90s doing ESP Sports tournaments over counter strike and stuff like that and got into game publishing like a 20 years ago I've been in in W 3 gaming for the last five years and yeah and and try to to get web2 developers to on board uh Web Two gamers in the web three this is our our mission hello everyone my name is mmed mostly known as Lucy I am cbdo this

dealabs we have two main project one of them is a web3 gaming studio and the other one is a web3 gaming infrastructure basically we we love building some games for gamers and also some uh game services for the game developers yeah thank you it was great to be be here thank you all for uh being here so the topic for this afternoon is uh is the Resurgence of uh web 3 games hype or is it more sustainable um but to lay to set the stage a bit first in your opinion uh I know it's very basic question but what is the difference between mainstream gaming and web three gaming um you know before we go into how it was and how it is now you start in this order whichever order you guys want I mean I would say the of course the the play to earn elements and the different monetization strategies that are not necessarily in the uh web two games and the

possibilities that blockchain technology can offer the gamey defy and access to liquidity that's possible today and of course there are a set of challenges scalability and others but I guess maybe that's for another question would I think um um I mean over over the last 25 years we have seen uh both uh uh online gaming and gaming in general uh uh let's say taking an evolution at the same time that they technology the internet technology was also having this Evolution so but in a way for example if you look back in the late 90s or early early 2000s you you look games like ultim online or EverQuest Star War galaxies they are not so much different from the MMR pgs today uh in terms of game mechanics actually some of the games back in those days were actually more complicated from now uh crafting point of view game mechanics point of view um

so uh as I see it I think I don't think there is a big difference the difference is really the technology technology enables features right and the more technology we have been seen that has been adding to the internet to the PCS like more computer power better graphics and all that we have seen an evolution also on games so um I think also because of web3 is not only about gaming it's about in general the internet and the centralization of I mean we SE organization basically right now in every single industry from banking to real estate to Pharmaceuticals it's so happening in gaming and it's a Natural Evolution that is going to be probably the same theme very soon so right now maybe the the difference is is the Innovation uh all of these ownerships and and play to stuff and and and items market account Market we have seen over the last 20 years people making a living out of that in a way illegal illegal by the publisher site I think that is is the

thing that is becoming maybe it's leading the space but there are so many more features around it especially the calization especially uh dropping barriers related to distrib Distributors stuff like that so I think is in many different ways different different factors is going to be affecting uh the the gaming space okay understood so uh Bel says there a business model difference while Alfredo focuses more on the what what features new tech techologies can enable I will get to the features the possible features uh enabled by that blockchain technology later on but now that in we understand your opinions on difference between mainstream and web 3 let's go to uh the how you see the difference between the last wave of web 3 games The Playbook that made you know the successes such as axi and whatnot and what's happening today in in this year's uh essance or

Resurgence of games um what do you think is the difference between two years ago and now in web 3 specifically I mean to start with there's a lot more focused now on the gam play and the user experience where previously the focus was more on the earn part and the kind of focus so much on the on the token and and the earning part of the game which is not really sustainable and right now we see a lot more balance between both and you need both and with some of the games that were built that that are being built right now in web 3 they can actually succeed just on the game play alone without actually the the tokenization element or or the gamey element because they're being built in a way that can engage and attract users and that's exactly what we want to uh you know what the game should be about start with uh for me I think uh the main focus like in India there was a big uh problem uh with crypto and anything related to you know web 3 any any basically anything that had a word to in it so the

resurgent for us is like uh during that time period everything was shut down absolutely everything that was crypto exchanges web3 games name it so the Resurgence is literally a reanimation of everything with the much uh broader support and understanding from regulators and payment gateways and stuff like that so since I specifically focus on that market for me Resurgence is this uh and ability to build you know a lasting business now now earlier there was always a question mark is this something that is going to survive or not now we know that we have the support from The Regulators we know that we can build out and actually build businesses behind this you mean uh India has introduced regulation on Real Money gaming also applies applied that also applied to web 3 so India had introduced regulation on crypto uh because the word token is there in non-fungible token and other tokens we never really published

our own token uh we were using nfts on our real money gaming platform it was like a hybrid web 3 and web 2 model that's where there's Clarity we're allowed to basically do business when earlier it was completely so uh regulation uh em you had something interesting about this in the previous cycle we called gamey play to earn games like more like a staking games not actual playing about uh right now uh developers more F most mostly focus on like building real games really fun games instead of like creating a hype uh after the Investments I just want to add like this so what are the games uh in this wave that you guys feel uh are leading the way in terms of uh engagement and fund for is a pixels parallel uh do you have any examples and do you think these games of this new wave are new milestones in our industry are still

experiment are they the Quake are they the uh the uh uh Diablo uh of of this cycle I just want to say like not yet there are no no mainstream games right now but uh I mean still this industry is still early when you call if you call them a web three games it's really early to take the lead from the uh traditional part but sorry um it's uh I just want to say that like it's still early to uh to to build a mainstream game for the web three part because there are lots of like uh different things to you should consider when you create especially when you create the sustainable e economy because like if you call the web three games you need to uh think about about this aspect so but I believe that will be uh a lead lead game for the just specific genre will come really soon on the web three part yeah so you think it's the

sustainability of the economy a game with a sustainable economy that will be a pivotal moment uh yeah I mean right now like most of the gamers just want to earn something from the web three games like not they are not coming for the playing but uh like the day after they the producer trying to build more fun games to bring the web to people they are looking for the fun games okay afredo you had something to say this um yeah I mean um my opinion is that um um um the the big barrier right now is is on boarding uh the web two players into web three um I mean I think the the next big one is is not going to be really differentiated from from web 2 I mean this is what we are trying to do already GG so we provide a technology that so developers can un board uh web two players into web three games just using the exactly the same workflow CL and we

are having cpis as low as low as as half dollar to create a wallet even from player store or Apple Store in in our partners some of the games we are boarding are just hyper casual games hybrid casual RPG games midcore so for so we have all kind of games um and I I think the new wave are going to be IND disable from from we from we to games from traditional games but I must say also that we cannot um forget about Mir for I mean Mir for has been really really successful from weate G miix even from the very early from 2021 from September 2021 when they publish in a steam they were already in the top 10 most played games in Te only with this mobile interface which was absolutely amazing that that happens in interface even with I think it was like a 30% only positive reviews and it still had over 1 million Mau and they still do it and they have been making so much money over the last two years they are still there they're still they have very strong nft

Market with nfts sold over 200k 300K because of these characters are really powerful and they can access the end game make amazing PVP battles so I think uh this is the model that we probably be export I mean you cannot export that in in many markets like for example the Western Market where they don't actually plers they don't like um this Hyer pay to win a style but I think that's going to be the way there are so many things in developing right now that looks really really good I mean and we are talking to so many partners that are building amazing games triple A with just uh with features on it like of course nft markets I mean nft nft items nft crafting in real time in in game using other nfts are resources uh with wallet interr into the into the game with web to style wallets which so plers not don't need to know anything about metam mass or stuff like that that's the real the real the real future for I mean

the next future maybe the last the next couple of years so as I said it's going to be IND disable from from traditional games and going to be high quality games and it's happening right now so I have a few names on mind that we are seeing and it's going to be MMO RPGs it's going to be M FPS going to be survival FPS we have seen that already so it's going to be happening many soon um so you're mentioning those featur a PVP experience crafting experience you know things that are done in a good way but that's you know a way to also describe mainstream the main mainstream games the main way you would distinguish it is that the items underneath that experience are actually on the blockchain and owned owned by the by the wallet holder yeah they're owned and they are unique I mean this is I think this is the the the leading part of as a feature I I mean but I think there are some many other features like for example data ownership from the

player side that's very important as well so players are going to be able to to get promotions from game developers directly in the blockchain directly in their wallets like in a user acquisition user acquisition mode user acquis is going to be changing a lot over the next years especially with we 3 I mean we're already seeing we 3 Performance Marketing agencies doing campaigns over the blockchain just sending directly to the pler wallets uh uh request for joining games that is something completely gamechanging I mean the the the user acquisition prices are going so it's going to be so low that is going to be so attractive for big Publishers that they are not going to be able to ignore this this this feature so this is one of one of the things going to happen also maybe for example um cross cross chain Quest sorry Cross Game Quest on chain that's so cross promotion between games um on chain profiles that can be portable from game to game uh the most important one probably is going to be

gugc like the same that content that that for example fortnite is doing that is going to be happening also in so many games using ugc tools over the blockchain that's one of the main monation feat I mean we are seeing games like geometric D or Roblox how the community is creating most of the content and that content is going to be monetized by them so that is also a question of the alpha generation and J generation set generation that they are already used to knowing about crypto and they are used to creating and sharing this is also part of the future so I think uh as we I think we are we just provideed tools for that probably the game developers will find the way to to make this happen no thank you I wanted to add something like I think uh and I'm strictly speaking from the perspective of uh real Mone games because that's the area I operate I think the Quake 2 already happened uh axi uh is a very good example for me of a game having such a big impact like forget about

Graphics gameplay everything right uh what what makes a game great is the impact it has on society culture and I think the Quake 3 is what is uh in progress right now and definitely is going to come out very soon and it's simply because of uh the different uh you know avenues that web3 opens up and D5 opens up I'm extremely excited uh you know to see what comes out but definitely the Quake through has happened Quake 3 is what's coming up well it is true that Quake eventually uh went into a sunset but it did create a lot of great things afterwards so maybe axi was earthquake uh we'll look back in hindsight in the future and see you also want no no I'm not going to push back I agree I think Quake 3 will come from web 3 I mean if if I look at the games being developed in in at the dmcc crypto and gaming center I mean one of the example is uh one of our members iblock Studio who buil who built a amazing third person shooter game uh web 3 called uh stray shot um and also I mean reflecting

back on the point of the um user experience and the unboarding I mean we seeing the first wave of web 3 games not having kind of an easy way of onboarding clients and wallet and all that but right now it's it's just become a lot more seamless which of course helps in user adoption and and you know that's what we need basically so you it's interesting you mentioned the MCC and you know and we're in Dubai here I wanted to understand a little bit uh what are the globally like the web 3 uh Tech hubs that you see cities web 3 cities that you see are forming some forms of hubs and do you guys everyone you know think Dubai is well positioned for that or not why are you here uh why should you be here uh any any insights on the I mean my answer would be a little bit biased because I work for Dubai government but um I can tell you that I mean there are many of course crypto cities around the world we've seen you know sa in Korea we've seen in

us we've seen uh zuk and and Switzerland and other places but what makes Dubai stand out really is is the uh you know the incentives that offers I mean tax friendly you know very Cosmopolitan it's easy to be here uh the Visa process easy this a generic stuff but specifically on the regulation I mean we have a dedicated regulator for virtual assets and most countries the regulator for the virtual assets is the same as the financial markets and stuff like that so these guys actually focus on creating regulations that that suit with the uh this industry and our experience so far have been good uh you have hubs and you have centers like the MCC of course that provide a supportive environment specifically catered to the gaming and crypto uh companies so web3 sits at the intersection of that we have a dedicated team for both so we've got khed who sits at the back right now he's hiding but he leads our gaming center we've got zaher who's not here today and his team who lead the crypto Center and the job of this team is to actually help support the the growth of those companies so providing them with the connections to investors to potential collaborators and

partners and you don't find that much in in many places so yeah are you guys in Dubai or where where are you but I agree with Bal uh when you know when we had the big platform in Rush uh we actually did open up a office here because the when we wanted to do a token raise and everything this was the place to be simply because what he said is completely true the traditional Regulators or banking systems and stuff don't really understand uh you know what we're trying to do I think on some days even I don't because it's so new so having that support makes a huge difference especially uh you know uh when you're trying to you know deploy capital and build uh like like you know we all know the Cs and all that are very high we don't really have ad networks that are serving our needs or very clear ways to engage with just web3 users so that makes a big difference uh and I agree with what you say so you were here for the token rise

essentially but the team is in India the team like no so it never happened because we had to shut everything down so the token raise never really happened but hopefully yeah we'll be back here very soon no no where is the team the team is based across Europe India turkey and Germany all around yeah on this fully remote yeah okay okay on this where are you guys yeah I just want to say like our team is based from turkey and our experience uh with Dubai is really great we U create really great connections and meet with the the industry leaders and take their insights and feedbacks it's really incredible opportunity and but is really great despite the weather Em by the way I'm curious about like the um the situation in uh turkey because a lot of like the traditional gaming Studios there used to focus on hyper casual and you know hyper casual is really a market that's struggling a lot now uh and I know for a fact many of them

are trying to Pivot to other things do you see people from traditional gaming mainstream gaming hyper casual moving on to web 3 maybe joining your team or maybe starting other project well it was great question this is one of our main goal to bring them to web3 because we are working on like some easy services to bring them to web Tre because as the like it's really web3 has some wonders and especially like uh the other uh speakers mentioned about the truth digital ownership this is really we take this uh seriously and I think the all developers should like give this option to to today players so I remember uh when free to play was growing was actually not growing it was when that was born um a lot of the tra back then traditional gaming developers who were used to like console premium kind of games uh were apprehensive at best and you know and like condescending uh most of the time about this free to-play free

Memorial the ugly clunky buggy Facebook canvases and of the world and and some of some of them still are true fre to I mean a lot of people are still free to play like like the devil like please don't talk to me about that true yeah um but I I'm wondering if there's a parallel Behavior happening now with you know the Advent of web 3 from the mainstream Gamers you like game developers including the premium and the freet to play now cuz now we're all old and dinosaurs and looking at this again just I mean I was part of the cabon line team back in 20 28 when it was published in in Europe and we were I think one of the very first M more PG free to play publish in Western markets and it's exactly like that and uh uh we everybody used to call us the vampires or the free to play that was by the media and the magazines you know so yeah and and I've been in W 3

for five years I mean before actually I was actually doing Bitcoin gaming before that and everybody was looking at us as we were aliens so I think is veryy similar it's a it's a very good comparison I'm I'm hearing this more and more yeah I mean look like like every emerging technology if you think about it it always starts with this hype and then comes the skepticism and you know challenges that it faces and then criticism because of that but then you learn from that kind of you know Challenge and scale up and and succeed after as a result I think this is what's happening to web 3 gaming at the moment and we're at the stage now where we can uh you know things will come to fruition and um we'll start seeing a lot more Improvement so more mainstream game developers joining uh the new paradigm yes and I think what helps also is the the the blockchain technology itself has improved uh to become a you know more

suitable for uh games being built on it and and the you know the challenges that were there before with the speed and do you guys feel mainstream gameing developers have something to contribute to web 3 gaming other than skepticism uh I think there is a lot of they have I mean the magic is always on the developer side especially when you are providing infrastructure and tools developers always come with with a good idea so uh um you cannot let's say look at them as a whole but some of them I'm sure they will be adding a lot of uh value to the west3 market very soon like very soon I'm sure about that I mean some of them they will keep doing their single player premium games for a steam and some of them will be doing their triaa games narrative games RPG games for mobile or console or whatever but that will be some of course they will dedicate resources and and we will see very good ide is coming up I'm sure you wanted to

say something about this uh I mean like Skeptics uh are always good I think uh it gives you motivation to do things I've seen a few different eras in gaming especially in India uh there was this thought that you can never really make a business in gaming especially in premium and then real money gaming where you know we ended up becoming at the Forefront of the world uh in terms of innovation so I I always feel that creative people and you know people who are doing mainstream games will slow and studly as uh web 3 starts becoming mainstream understand it better and want to contribute because I somehow believe people who work in gaming uh work here because it's exciting it's interesting and it gives us an opportunity to do cool things every day and right now there's nothing cooler than web 3 uh um I want to shift a little bit

towards uh looking a bit towards the future um and if you look at the current uh adoption like number of active wallets or active users on web 3 games it's you know it's extremely small in comparison to mainstream games it's you know if you put the whole Market together it's smaller than the DU of an okay game uh in mainstream um yet you know the noise is much bigger um for those who believe in uh the future of such games what do you think should happen so that um on boarding of the masses can start to occur yeah I I can talk a little bit about this because uh so on Rush when we launched our Avatar nfts as we like to call them uh within a period of 3 months uh we were at a level of 2 50k daily active nft wallets and almost 1.2

million monthly active wallets right so scale will come I think it really depends on the product the use case and all of that uh I feel uh it's looking for its next you know kind of big thing real money games work better because it's it's like a financial system at the end of the day but uh yes it's definitely possible and and when you see mainstream web 3 games maybe uh this data is not very public but uh I I have seen it happen in front of me I've seen adoption that happens very fast if the right incentive and The Right Use case is presented so are you saying it's the real money incentives that will grow uh user bases no so we already had a network so we had the web two site by introducing a hybrid web 2/ web3 model we were able to transition people much quicker because they understood what we

were trying to do the nft didn't do anything apart from give you some extra rewards and you know things for the web to sign of things but even then people found value in it and they started adopting very what I'm trying to understand here is how can we go from 250 da th000 da to as an industry 30 million da that's a great question well uh due to uh negative news about uh the hacks about the security and also like the understanding blockchain is a bit tricky so people still hesitate to come web to come uh so if we like cut this uh way of thinking and we can improve our uh systems like uh like easy uh onboarding systems and also like with the fun games maybe educational contents could be like helpful for the broad audience I just want to say that

yeah okay we're almost running out of time here anyone has any last remark otherwise we can oh Alfredo yes I will just say that um back maybe 10 or 15 years ago when when I was actually playing much more than I play today when I used to play games like world Warcraft and all of that nobody would have thought how much money is making fortnite just by selling a Skins now people would just would just play with a monthly sub that's it monthly fee playing World of Warcraft or warham online I love these games but the and when when skins appear in games like Runes of Magic back in 2010 2011 nobody thought it would be this this business right and it has taken a full generation of Gamers to incorporate into the into the market and change how it works uh now players spend hundred of of of dollars with with skins and that and they just love it the Skins all that so

I think that is probably the the the thing we need sometime that there's a new generation of gamer incorporating to the market getting used to W3 getting used to the to the gugc ownership and this with slowly change things and and and create a new generation of games it's going to be going to take some time okay yeah I I just want to add like now with chains like polygon arbitrum and stuff which are built for games from the ground up the more and more more profilation that happens of these kind of chains I think that will really you know help us uh reach the much much bigger numbers and uh I don't see that 30 million U you da number very very far away like just one single super hit game you know can get us there okay let's uh look start small right Smart Start small let's look back at this uh kpi next year and look back and every year maybe so round of applause for my great panelist thank you very much and hope you have a great day

[Music] [Music] [Music]