NFT Gaming Trends For 2023

Trends in NFT gaming are constantly changing, so various industry professionals have come together to share their insights from the industry.

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Although traditional gaming companies are currently facing negative pressure from players to integrate NFT into their games, executives in the NFT-focused gaming industry are hopeful that more of those companies will join the industry this year. When various industry professionals recently shared their insights into the NFT gaming trends for 2023, one topic was the involvement of large gaming companies in the NFT world, or how important NFT gaming models such as Play-To-Earn (P2E) and Move-To-Earn (M2E) are.

Sky Mavis co-founde,r Aleksander Larsen, whose team is behind the popular Play-To-Earn game Axie Infinity, said it's only a matter of time before more big companies enter the NFT industry. According to Larsen, these companies are waiting until they see that these games are generating billions in profits.

Larsen also pointed to the involvement of tech giants such as Google and Microsoft, and mentioned that Google Cloud runs the Ronin Network validator. "I look forward to seeing big tech giants like Google and Microsoft get even deeper into the blockchain gaming industry," he added.

When asked what the importance of Play-To-Earn will be in 2023, Larsen admitted that the model is currently imperfect.

"As the pioneers behind the first Play-To-Earn game, I can say with certainty that it doesn't work in its current state. Games need to be fun first and foremost, and have a good economic backdrop that allows some players to make a profit."

Zoe Wei, senior sales director at BNB Chain, shared Larsen's thoughts. She said the model needs to continue to be experimented with and analyzed to make the tokenomics of most games sustainable.

"Too much emphasis has been placed on the earning mechanism and not enough on the fun of the games", Wei said. Despite this, Wei still thinks that both the Play-To-Earn and Move-To-Earn models are relevant for 2023 - they just need to be refined.

Wei also commented on the involvement of traditional game makers in the NFT world. She believes that NFT and blockchain technologies have "undeniable advantages" for game makers and players. "In the past year, we have seen countless game studios venturing into Web 3.0, and this trend will continue in 2023," she added.

Another who thinks more big game studios will join the ranks this year is Carlos Pereira, a partner at Bitkraft Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on games. He said:

"We have seen many funding rounds in 2022 related to spin-off projects from traditional gaming businesses in the US and Europe, and we expect this trend to continue, with several major public launches in 2023."

Pereira mentioned that while Asian gaming firms are more open in their crypto-business, western firms are also rushing into the market, but "are more cautious about PR." Still, the CEO believes this trend will continue.

When asked about the Play-To-Earn model, Pereira said that the first version of the concept should gradually fade away. "We hope that this first implementation of Play-To-Earn is buried for good," he said. Pereira said the business model made no sense because it had no way to attract players who would pay to play.

Another trend for 2023, according to Alex Altgausen, co-founder of NFT game Banksters, is that the community will have higher expectations. According to Altgausen, 2021 and 2022 were like filters, exposing the NFT games that just wanted to use players for their own enrichment. He explained:

"The era of everyone having a pretty website and promising a game is over."

The implication is that in 2023, NFT games will see investors first checking out the assets, what stage of development the product is in, the partnerships and the media footprint before putting their own money into them.

Source: cointelegraph.com