Be it Web2 or Web3, technology should connect people and offer benefits by interacting with other computers (on-chain events) and the natural world (augmented reality), especially when it comes to gaming.

Web3 gaming should be fun and safe

Games define us, make us wiser and more street-smart, calm us down, bring us together as a community and sometimes, stress us. Above all, a fun and safe gaming experience are of the utmost importance to all gaming experiences!

Crypto use in games today has made games challenging to understand and extremely risky for gamers. Especially for Web3 gaming, it shouldn’t involve financing to prevent it from becoming another decentralized finance (DeFi) or trading product. Any in-game monetary actions in free-to-play games should be simple and understandable.

A little look into Web3/blockchain games

What’s the Web3 gaming scene, also known as blockchain gaming, like today? In one sentence — it’s grown 2,000% from 2021 to 2022 (as reported by DappRadar).

Around 800k everyday gamers make 18 million transactions daily, according to Footprint Analytics. In addition, “blockchain-based game companies fundraised $2.5 billion” in quarter 1 of 2022, meaning “2022 investments will be 150% higher than last year”.

Some of the most adopted Web3/blockchain games with active daily users doing thousands of on-chain activities include:

• Gala Games platform with multiple games on Ethereum
• The Sandbox Game on Ethereum/Polygon (promising)
• Splinterlands (Wax/Hive)
• Trickshot Blitz (Flow), Benji Bananas and Planet IX on Polygon
• Tiny World (BNB)
• Axie Infinity (Ethereum/Ronin)
• MarsColony on Harmony
• Tank Wars Zone on Fantom
• STEPN on Solana

There are also promising games like Blockstars, Alpha League Racing on Solana, and Project Nebula on ICON.

That said, I’d like to point out that Web3 games don’t all have to run on-chain. It’s great if they do, but this is far from the requirements. Some games have specific on-chain activities from gameplay proofs, achievements and having part of the gameplay on-chain. Some others use Web3 avatar support or skins that are often imported/exported just once and verified from time to time, all while no gameplay happens on the chain. We’ll soon see more metaverse projects and massive multiplayer online games (MMO) that will use Web3 and keep their gameplay classical.

Web3 and gaming

Web3 is like a new database layer — a new way to store specific data and allow customers to interact with it in much more ways than used to be possible previously. It’s almost like a new form of API!

With the rise of Web3, we have a fantastic opportunity to use this technological advancement to create a positive impact on the gaming world, allowing more transparency, ownership and an experience that players drive. On the other hand, issues need to be resolved to give users the fun and safe experience they deserve, which brings us to 3 main problems in Web3 games today.

Three main problems in Web3 games today

User onboarding

User onboarding for Web3 games right now is an absolute mess. From requesting players’ wallet information to long ‘know your customer’ (KYC) forms that users don’t understand, the chaos begins from registration.

While specific platforms like Wax, ICON, Obyte, etc., have their approaches, there’s been (thankfully) several initiatives to mitigate user onboarding issues, for example:

• Metamask unifying Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) wallets, along with Coinbase
• Blocknative’s Web3-Onboard library
• Opera and its Crypto Browser

In addition, many new initiatives are starting from Metamask + Epic + GOG and Superb, who are all pushing forward to solve the user onboarding issue.

Game onboarding, no matter the web it’s in, should be simple, seamless and secure, e.g., secure single sign-on (SSO) two-factor authentication (2FA) protection. Users shouldn’t have to duplicate their KYC or personal details each time they want to play a new Web3 game.

To allow players to enjoy games further, they shouldn’t have to create wallets or share wallet information upfront. In many instances, users don’t usually need to interact with their wallets. Hence, instead of having wallet information as an onboarding barrier, users could be informed about both custodial and non-custodial wallets or have wallets created for them as part of the registration flow. An example case that worked well was Reddit and its easy process of buying NFTs and setting up wallets.

As user onboarding can be a complicated process for game developers, this is where Web3 game portals and networks, like us — Superb, come into play. Game providers and portals can help with simple, safe and secure user onboarding so that gamers can simply enjoy their games and game developers can leverage the latest technology.

Game assets and transactions

Unfortunately, another bad dream somewhat looms right after the nightmare of registration and onboarding: “Where do I get my ‘SuperDuper’ game token and game NFT that’s needed to play?” This brings us to the second problem of Web3 games today: the difficulty of game assets and transactions, namely, how to obtain game assets to start playing new games and perform game transactions with other players.

Obtaining game assets should be accessible.

Games must be fun, educational and relaxing experiences. If they allow social interactions, such as massive(ly) multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG), that’s even better. Players want to enjoy games, collect items, feel involved, participate in the community and be valuable gamers. They don’t want to spend forever trying to figure out how to start playing a new game, whichever web it’s in.

As such, games should enable easy access and purchase of game assets, especially during the onboarding process, so players can start playing almost immediately.

Transaction of game assets with other players should be seamless

Currently, there is a lack of good platforms for players to quickly and seamlessly trade game assets or perform in-game transactions, e.g., sending item X to a friend or creating a gift.

As a result, users have to go into marketplaces, e.g., NFT marketplaces like Opensea, Rarible, Sorare, SolSea, Magic Eden and MakersPlace, which aren’t very user-friendly for such transactions.

These are issues that Superb is aiming to solve via our SDKs for game developers. We want to connect and enable smooth onboarding with automated integration and setup of game assets, like a starter package that gets easily transferred to the user’s account for purchased games or game assets.

Within this setup, purchasing a game or game asset will be as simple as e-commerce orders are today, regardless of the payment system — a single click toward conversion. In addition, we strive to make it easy for game transactions within our Web3 game portal by enabling easy, seamless and safe transfers via username handles so users can easily transact and exchange game assets with each other.

Security and Trust

While there are thousands of Web3 games right now and more games (e.g., AAA games) upcoming, there’s currently a slight lack of security and regulation. This, unfortunately, brings about the possibility of thieves, scammers, fraudsters and other bad people who want to get rich by taking advantage of others’ ignorance or extorting accounts and other assets from gamers. As technology evolves, gold diggers or projects built on wrong attitudes or bad principles may subsequently affect gamers negatively.

Here’s where gaming portals and networks can come in: to provide a robust platform for stimulating trust. This is a primary reason we created Superb — a portal and network that lists validated games by reviewers. Each game is played, tested and reviewed by players in our community, with obvious scams and unclear games filtered out. Our mission is to find and elevate Web3 games that stand out for their quality, innovation and ease of access.

That said, we aren’t alone in this. Along with other game portals like Fractal and Epic, we’re working towards making Web3 games better to give players a fun and safe gaming experience, even if we have to use the latest alien technology from the outer rims!

Games Discovery • Superb Identity/SSO • Superb SDK

Have any feedback? I’m here to hear you out! Feel free to write to me about your concerns and ask about our platform, games & reviews. If you are a game studio, let us know here. If you are a reviewer and would like to participate, feel free to email me an intro with a few of your publicly published game-related writing examples (e.g., articles/reviews).