Gaming industry to have a 'blockchain-connected' future, studio execs say

cointelegraph.com:

With blockchain slowly finding its way into the video gaming industry, sector veterans and executives of nonfungible token (NFT) blockchain WAX believe that there will be more connections between games and blockchain networks in the future.

In a Cointelegraph interview, WAX head of publishing David Kim and WAX Studios head of game studios Michael Rubinelli shared their insights on NFTs, the metaverse and blockchain gaming.

According to Kim, despite having less search interest on Google, engagement with games, the metaverse and NFTs is not dead. “On the WAX blockchain, we saw a doubling of the number of sales transactions at the start of Q4 2021, and it has remained elevated ever since,” he said.

On the other hand, when asked about the future of play-to-earn (P2E) gaming models, Rubinelli compared P2E implementation to the adoption of free-to-play and microtransactions within gaming. Having more than 20 years in the gaming industry, the gaming executive thinks that a similar pattern is playing out.

In a 2021 report published by the blockchain gaming alliance, a survey showed that many respondents share the same sentiment as the WAX executives when asked how much the blockchain industry is likely to leverage blockchain in the next two years.

Talking about the challenges that blockchain games face, Rubinelli mentioned that scalability is still a major concern. “Right now, the biggest challenge is the lack of ability for most blockchains to scale,” he said.

Related: Report: Axie Infinity accounted for nearly two-thirds of blockchain-game NFT transactions in 2021

The gaming veteran noted that Layer2 solutions could not scale unless they are "100% dedicated to a single game such as Ronin for Axie Infinity." He also mentioned the