Since its inception over two decades ago, the mobile gaming industry has advanced far beyond the monochrome Snake and Tetris apps of the late 1990s.
Hardly the focus of any gaming company at first, mobile gaming has developed into one of the most well-liked types of entertainment in the world, moving from straightforward 2D games to intricate 3D universes. Development budgets and marketing have also risen hand-in-hand with display technology, and the multi-billion dollar industry has seen seminal moments in gaming come from this sector.
A major moment came at the turn of the century, when EA Games finally took the leap into mobile and developed some of the earliest titles for mobile phones. With colour screens emerging, racing games on phones had become a staple for a new breed of Generation X’ers owning their first modern phones.
The next leap for mobile gaming came with Apple’s touchscreen technology in 2007 as it was one of the first times people played games that responded to touch – leading to a new genre of games that were only playable on mobile or tablets.
The next significant step in the mobile gaming revolution came with a technology that has long been earmarked for games: extended reality (ER). And while various XR technology (virtual reality or VR, augmented reality or AR, for example) struggled to find mainstream use in gaming consoles and desktop titles, mobile gaming found major success with AR in games like Pokemon Go in 2016.
With the introduction of Web3 and blockchain technology, the mobile gaming sector is now poised for another significant step forward. This article will examine the potential effects of Web3 on mobile gaming in 2023 and beyond.
Crypto, blockchain, NFTs
Non-fungible tokens or NFTs were the heralds of the crypto boom in 2021, even as much as they were the harbingers of the crypto bear market in 2022.
Though this piece of blockchain-based technology was so much more than digital collectibles and expensive Gifs, their indelible mark on the art and gaming scenes were largely thanks to a simple fact. Thanks to NFTs, artists, collectors, and gamers were suddenly getting accustomed to the idea of being able to take ownership of assets that conventionally only belonged to the platform that housed them.
For gamers, this probably meant a lot more. Traditional games have huge markets for in-game assets. Items, equipment, skins, that were traded for millions of real dollars. But because they were usually sanctioned only within game marketplaces, there were also huge underground markets that commanded millions of dollars of unsanctioned (and therefore illegal) trades.
As such, the inclusion of NFTs in mobile games will be one of the biggest changes in 2023. Unique digital assets known as NFTs may be purchased, sold, and exchanged much like real-world assets. They are already utilized in Web3 games to produce distinctive in-game goods like armor, weaponry, and even virtual property.
More mobile games will likely include NFTs into their gameplay in 2023, enabling players to own unique goods and potentially profit from their in-game assets in the real world.
A new degree of security and transparency will be added to the mobile gaming industry as a result of the adoption of blockchain technology. Blockchain-based games will provide players the ability to control their in-game possessions, making them impervious to loss or theft. NFTs mean that these hitherto locked assets could finally be taken out of various games and into an open digital space, to be sold and kept on crypto wallets that would survive long after game servers shut down. Blockchain technology can also stop fraud and hacking in mobile games, providing gamers with a safer and more secure gaming experience.
Additionally, certain developments are anticipated to occur in the hypercasual mobile game industry in 2023 (simple-to-play games that are designed to be played in short bursts are referred to as hypercasual games). Recent years have seen a rise in their popularity, with games like Flappy Bird and Candy Crush enjoying tremendous success.
However, according to industry analysts, the hypercasual market will fall before rebounding in 2023. Because there is a low entrance barrier, game creators from all over the world will experiment in this market to produce profitable games. Therefore, the hypercasual mobile games industry may see fresh and inventive concepts in 2023, resulting in the birth of new subgenres and enjoyable games.
Ian Masters, Founder and CEO of Flick Games, predicts a shift in attitudes towards non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in the gaming industry. Resistance towards NFTs is expected to dissipate as players and developers begin to understand and embrace the technology’s potential for promoting player ownership and generating additional revenue.
Game developers will leverage NFTs in a way that benefits players through a combination of ads, in-app purchases, subscriptions, and NFT rewards. Some NFTs will have little to no monetary value, while others will be rare and collectible items.
The blockchain gaming industry will continue to attract investments, as more developers and talent enter the field. Additionally, established players from the traditional gaming industry are also planning to increase their investments in the emerging Web3 domain in order to gain an early advantage.
In conclusion, the mobile gaming industry is about to undergo a significant transformation with the integration of Web3 technology and blockchain. From the integration of NFTs to the growth of the hypercasual sector, 2023 promises to be an exciting year for mobile gaming.