Why P2E games are the key to marketing and monetization challenges

The current gaming market is in intense consolidation mode, with new privacy concerns inhibiting user acquisition, but also exploding with new opportunities and new platforms. With the launch of NFT games based on blockchain technology, game-to-revenue and web free-to-play growth strategies, and more, Andrew N. Green, consultant at Yield Guild Games, moderated a panel of industry experts at GamesBeat’s “Enter the Metaverse” Summit. In mature and growing markets, discovery is one of the biggest challenges any developer can encounter. At the same time, making a profit means affecting the user experience with advertising.
“There has to be something better,” said Sebastien Borget, co-founder of The Sandbox.” The better approach is to get users into the experience by allowing them to own the game assets. We’re changing the balance of value when we design video games.
Web 3 is defined as an Internet owned by builders and users, choreographed by tokens, and Borget says there’s no better way to empower users than by actually rewarding them with tokens. It’s a way to create engagement, shifting the distribution of value from centralized marketplaces and centralized stores to providing 100 percent of the value to users.
How Web 3 is changing game marketing
Steam and Valve have banned Web 3 games that utilize NFT and on-chain systems because these games are currently reducing their company’s revenue. They have no way to generate revenue through the blockchain; at the same time, they lose users who are customers because they stop playing other games that make money for Steam and Valve.
From a business perspective, it makes sense for them, but at the same time, leaving that possibility on the surface for competitors to capture is a huge risk, said Nicolas Gilot, founder and CEO of Ultra.io. Ultra is building a marketplace for Web 3 games, but doesn’t want to just build a Steam version that accepts Web 3 games. Instead, they are building a complete ecosystem that can take advantage of the depth of Web 3 games.
“To me, that’s what Web3 games are all about,” he says.” You don’t just have the game itself. You also have games that go beyond games.
You can unlock an unlimited amount of rewards for loyal players — for example, they can earn valuable NFTs by watching streaming events, playing games to get in-game NFTs, Diamond NFTs from Cashbox game, munchkins from Axie, and dresses from inside DCL. As a publisher, offering this NFT through anchors provides the opportunity to gain more users who have the chance to earn this rare reward. At the same time, it draws attention to the game itself, as people watching this stream from the anchor community will have access to the game.
This setup can also be offered in game tournaments, where NFT can allow players to participate or upgrade.
“You can start to see the interconnectedness of the various pieces of the gaming industry puzzle,” he said.” Whether you’re a fan of eSports, you want to watch a live stream, or you just want to buy the game and be part of the community, Web3 allows these interactions between users in the form of NFTs.
These communities have become a very powerful way to market games through word of mouth, said Bozena Rezab, CEO and co-founder of GAMEE, which has created a separate community around their Arc8 tournament that brings eSports to mobile devices. Anyone can own a virtual tournament arena and host their own tournaments using their own rules, prize pools and game content.
“We provide a platform with an infrastructure and we let them do everything else around it, giving them more power,” Rezab explained.” This is both exciting and scary. It’s a powerful use case for a product that allows people to customize their experience, as well as their marketing channels.
Borget says guilds in particular are now playing a critical role in discovering games to make money on games for two reasons. First, empowering users and empowering communities has transformed discovery from a traditional platform to a community-driven group. Guilds not only help find games, but also help educate more players and bring more players into the space, effectively increasing the total number of users who can participate.
As revenue game guilds, such as Yield Guild Games, grow and globalize, so do the number of users looking to discover new games. In order to capture this market, game developers need to adopt the right mechanics to empower players to achieve true game-to-earnings and are now increasingly joined by global game developers such as the Pokémon-like Illuvium, which is set up to bring you NFT and token earnings for exploring and completing challenges once you catch an Illuvium. Cashbox.info only needs a metadata blind box to open the door to the meta-universe, you can own the land of different civilizations and summon mythical beasts and cultivate and upgrade to trade for revenue; NFT-based game Galaxy Fight Club (GFC), take a PFP (picture proof) NFT, you can turn it into an avatar to fight other fighters in distant galaxy to fight other fighters.
These communities are self-driven and self-managed, and can easily abandon one game and switch to another, which changes the user acquisition model. Control has disappeared from the platform, and these users have become a community that becomes attractive to publishers because they can create content, help develop their favorite games, and become an important part of the gaming industry.
But before you dive in, the first thing you have to do is get into the Discord channel, play existing games and figure out how the whole experience works, Rezab said.
“It’s a shift in thinking. It’s a change in thinking. When they really understand the power behind it, they’ll be able to think about their own game,” he said.” You can’t just paste NFT into an existing game. That’s not the idea.
“But don’t forget that the driving force behind “winning the game” is to give the power to the user first,” Borget added.” If game developers lead by example, present interesting games in a fair and exemplary manner, and ultimately benefit users by owning their assets, we will all ultimately benefit by driving greater adoption and changing mindsets.