Free-to-play Web3 games hold the key to mass adoption — YGG co-founder

cointelegraph.com:

2024’s most successful Web3 games will pivot from play-to-earn (P2E) to instead focus on being entirely free-to-play to attract players, says Yield Guild Games co-founder Gabby Dizon. 

Speaking to Cointelegraph, Dizon said unlike games such as Axie Infinity Classic — which require players to purchase at least three Axie nonfungible tokens (NFTs) to play — the new wave of hyper-successful Web3 games will seek to remove as many of the financial and technical barriers to entry as possible.

“There’s an evolution of the business model where the games are free to play, and then at some point along the way while you’re playing, then you’re able to mint an NFT or start earning tokens, but a lot of new games aren’t really starting with requiring NFT ownership at the start,” he said.

This shift toward a free-to-play model is part of a wider effort from Web3 game developers to put gameplay first and tokenomics second, Dizon explained.

He added the shift forms a large part of the solution to speculative Web3 gaming bubbles. By creating games that players want to keep playing, they’ll reinvest their capital in the game and prevent the in-game economy from becoming a cash-generating machine, Dizon said.

Running near-parallel to the decline in crypto prices, blockchain games witnessed their own downturn as players and revenues trickled out of the ecosystem following the sudden collapse in Axie Infinity-related asset values in late 2021.

Surveys from October 2022 showed that even the most adamant crypto gamers were leaving in droves, citing the over-financialization of gameplay, lack of fun and confusion around crypto wallet tech.

Dizon says all of that is about to change.

“After Axie became popular two years ago, a lot of very experienced