The innovation of Web3 has changed the face of the global gaming industry. With a technological shift from traditional gaming to Web3 gaming, the latter focuses on a decentralized platform to engage the players in innovative and lucrative game-play. Web3 gaming helps the players engage in play-to-earn via cryptocurrencies and NFTs. It transforms all the aspects of centralized gaming by democratizing the platform and putting the main power in the player’s hands rather than confining it to any central authority within a game.
Due to the inefficiency of the centralized gaming servers, grey markets have emerged to give scope to hackers and scammers. These markets have ruined the credibility of the centralized gaming servers. They exploit the players and take away all the benefits from the developers and administrators of the gaming network. Due to this, the administrators are unable to safeguard the gaming platform and the players of that platform from sudden cyberattacks and shutdowns. These cyberattacks and shutdowns make the digital assets more vulnerable to fraud, theft and are at high risk of loss.
To solve all these problems, Web3 Gaming provides innovative ways like gaming DAOs, Web3 game-asset ownership, play-to-earn, crypto-gaming wallets, metaverse gaming, etc. Let us now dive into the article to unfold Web3 Gaming and its attributes.
What is Web3 Gaming?
Web3 gaming is a decentralized gaming process where all the activities are carried out in an autonomous and distributed gaming ecosystem. It provides complete ownership of gaming assets and authority to make decisions in all the gaming aspects. All the decision-making aspects and ownership in a Web3 Gaming ecosystem are delegated away from a central authority.
Web3 Gaming platforms are built by integrating blockchain into them. Blockchain integration powers the gamers to express their opinions as to when and in which way the game should evolve. Web3 gaming lays the foundation of P2E for the players by changing the pay-to-play aspect for them. It provides asset trading, tradeable game tokens, etc.
Web3 gaming also gives a wide scope of interoperability between different gaming ecosystems by connecting their in-game assets and players across the different platforms. The factor of cross-chain connectivity among the various gaming ecosystems depends upon the blockchains that have been integrated into the gaming platforms. For example, Polkadot and Solana have the interoperability attribute in the form of cross-chain bridges for communication.
Let us now look at some of the prominent features of Web3 Gaming in the next section.
Features of Web3 Gaming
Web3 gaming is a value exchange structure of gaming in which the people trade the in-game objects and collectibles. These gaming objects and collectibles are stored on the blockchain in the form of distinctive NFTs. It, therefore, offers self-sovereignty and decentralization to the game players in an open-source environment. The prominent features of Web3 Gaming are as the follows:
Interoperability and ownership
Web3 gaming powers the self-sovereignty of the players, where they own the in-game assets and collectibles in the form of distinctive NFTs. In centralized gaming, players own the in-game assets but not fully. When they decide to change their gaming platform, they will lose all their in-game assets and collectibles. Web 3.0, when integrated into gaming platforms, addresses the problem of partial ownership. It provides interoperability between different gaming platforms and helps in cross-chain asset in-game asset transfer and trading.
Old game integration
Every game has a distinctive process and is preferred by the players as per their liking and gaming skills. In context to that, Web3 Gaming has this interesting feature to integrate and upgrade older game models into metaverse and blockchain platforms as per players’ preference. It transforms a player’s favorite game into a decentralized game by extending them to the metaverse. This helps the players trade and make their avatars in their favorite game.
Player-driven gaming
Web3 gaming tailors the gaming platforms as per players’ preferences. It benefits the players by providing them with the feature of play-to-earn lucrative gaming> Web3 gaming. It also supports the integration of old games, which the players prefer playing on a decentralized open platform. It, therefore, powers the gamers by giving absolute self-sovereignty.
Negligible downtime
Web 3.0 integrated gaming ecosystems function autonomously with negligible downtime and minimum maintenance cost. It is quite scalable in nature with fast block minting and a high-game storage facility.
Let us now quickly look at the technology stack of Web3 Gaming in the next section.
Technology Stack of Web3 Gaming
Web 3.0 libraries/ dApps
Web 3.0 libraries and dApps help game players and developers communicate with the blockchain network. These dApps and libraries power the in-game transactions and assets trade. They also help developers and players interact with smart contracts. Web3 Gaming dApps are developed using Web3.js, ether.js, Web3.py, etc.
Smart contracts
All the game voting and decision-making for upgrading the game is conducted and monitored by the smart contracts, which are subject to alteration as per players’ requirements. Most game developers use the Remix IDE to code, compile and deploy the smart contracts.
Node/Web 3.0 providers
Nodes or Web 3.0 providers extract the gaming data stored on the blockchain network. Nodes play an important role in the Web 3.0 developer stack, as without them, the Web 3.0 libraries are not allowed to interact with the smart contracts.
Digital wallets and XR hardware
XR hardware contains smart glasses, haptic gloves and scanning sensors to connect the gaming platform with the metaverse for an immersive and engaging experience in Web3 Gaming.
Then there are gaming wallets with unique wallet addresses, which help identify the players. These wallets hold distinctive gaming collectibles and in-game assets in them.
Open Interoperable media standards.
These interoperable media standards comprise the following:
- Texts
- Audio
- 3D Scenes
- Vectors
Web3 gaming focuses on the players via user installation, user engagement, user retention and user revenue generation. It improves all the important KPIs of gaming by providing cross-chain gaming sessions, real-time player engagement, SDKs, gaming wallets, APIs, smart contracts, etc.
Using a unified workflow that also powers game interoperability, Web3 Gaming lays the foundation for GameFi. GameFi is the amalgamation of decentralized gaming and finance. Web3 gaming, therefore, transforms the gaming industry into a lucrative open-source gaming sector throughout the world.