In recent years, NFTs and play-to-earn (P2E) games have dominated the conversation around blockchain technology in gaming. And rightly so.
With the successes of projects like Axie Infinity, there is little doubt that NFTs and blockchain-based games will play a major role in the future of gaming.
But while the spotlight is on these two, other innovative products of blockchain technology are shaping up to have an equally large impact on gaming. These are decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs).
DAOs in Gaming
DAOs set out to revolutionize the power structure of modern and future organizations. They have been quite successful in the NFT and cryptocurrency space, where they provide an avenue for like-minded people to come together and pursue common goals as a community.
This is achieved through their flat structure and round-table approach to running an organization where the votes of all involved members dictate strategy.
And over the past couple of years, web3 games have brought NFTs and cryptocurrencies into gaming. This has allowed DAOs to carve out a place in the industry, bringing with them a wealth of possibilities and opportunities bound to shape the next generation of gaming.
How DAOs Are Improving the Gaming Industry
Building Communities
The days of the stereotypical ‘nerd in a basement’ gamer are long gone. Today, gaming is a social activity like it's never been before. Modern gamers interact with each other on a personal level. They meet face-to-face and form communities, both online and in the real world.
DAOs in gaming are taking this sense of community to a whole new level. They bring together gamers, investors, enthusiasts, and developers into communities where everyone has a voice. And, it's not just for fun. These organizations are typically created in pursuit of a goal that will benefit everyone in the community.
Investment Opportunities
A common goal of decentralized autonomous organizations is investments. There are several ways that DAOs pursue investment opportunities in gaming. One of these involves investing early in promising web3 game projects.
This has two effects. First, it provides promising projects with the funds they need to be successful. And second, it allows players in the DAO to get involved in new games as early adopters.
More ambitious DAOs are even starting to venture into game development themselves. This will allow the creation of games owned and run by communities.
The basis for this model is to empower gaming communities with both voice and choice, creating a collaboration between developer and player.
But on the flip side, it carries a great deal of risk. Little is known about the consequences of opening development decisions to a large community. So, it remains to be seen how successful these projects will be.
A different investment approach (and the most common) involves investing in early-stage games with varying models and from every genre with web3 components such as NFTs, and/or established blockchain-enabled web3 games. Gaming guilds within DAOs are a great example of DAOs making the most of this model.
How?
Games like Axie Infinity provide an avenue for people to earn from gaming. But they are not free-to-play. Players need to invest a relatively high amount of money before they can start playing.
And given that the majority of people interested in playing the games are from developing countries, raising this capital is a huge challenge. This locks a lot of players out of the games.
One thing that DAO-based gaming guilds have done is provide an avenue for such players to get the funds needed to start playing. A gaming guild consists of investors and players.
The former invests in the NFTs and in-game tokens needed by the latter to play the game. It's like a scholarship program.
This allows players who would otherwise have missed the opportunity due to a lack of funds to start making money through gaming. When profits are realized, the revenue is split between the player, the investor, and the guild.
Some guilds take a 50-50 split, while others allow their players to take as much as 70% of the earnings.
Since Axie Infinity took the world by storm, web3 gaming has dramatically shifted and expanded. Game development from all genres has exploded onto the scene.
At the same time, web2 game designers, legacy studios, and publishers have joined the gaming revolution and are incorporating web3 elements in different and varying manners.
As a result, the modern state of web3 gaming is diverse, evolving, and has broadly expanded far beyond the early days of simple P2E models.
Competitive Gaming and Entertainment
One of the biggest, most exciting, and most competitive evolutions of gaming is esports. As new as it is in the web2 sphere, in web3 gaming, it‘s even younger and still has a long way to go.
Some particularly ambitious and creative DAOs are taking this challenge and venturing into the scene. Ready Player DAO (RPD), a platform that plans to elevate its community to nurture top talent and help grow web3 esports, is a notable example.
Global adoption is a big part of RPD’s vision.
The RPD Co-Founder stated, “The ultimate goal of the DAO is to be a global organization for the gamers by the gamers, acting as a north star for web3 gaming while driving global adoption of web3 gaming with and for all stakeholders. As the DAO evolves, and as we’ve already seen, the community will continue to help mould this vision and help expand what's currently possible in web2 as well as web3."
Entertainment value will, of course, be crucial to the success of esports in web3 and the global adoption of web3 gaming. This is a challenge that RPD is solving by pioneering a new form of content creation.
The DAO has entered a strategic partnership with Brandon Martyn, the largest Pokemon Go content creator in the world. This partnership will allow Mr. Martyn to bring his captivating content into the web3 gaming ecosystem, which should help gamers skeptical about blockchain gaming to transition into web3.
RPD has also entered a partnership with Alliestrasza, a well-known streamer who has done outstanding work in Hearthstone and other trading card games.
The Future of Gaming
Blockchain technology is set to revolutionize the future of gaming. Through DAOs, it will create a gaming scene characterized by accessibility, lower barriers to entry, and stronger connections between gamers, studios, guilds, and participants.
Also, the goal of web3 is to empower and foster a strong community. The use of blockchain and NFTs in gaming is intended to do just that by giving gamers ownership and the freedom to transact their in-game assets on a global scale.
