LogInThe blockchain gaming pie is growing in size, funds have no intention of cutting the industry investments, and everyone froze in anticipation of the moment of reaping benefits and receiving a cash influx. Well, those projects may work out in the future. But does Web3 have any hands-on potential for games right now? Let’s find out.
Here-and-Now Blockchain Potential for Games
Building new games from scratch is always risky, let alone betting on new technology like blockchain. But you don't have to develop new solutions to make money with Web3. Blockchain tools can boost revenue for already successful mobile or browser games. Here are a few examples of how this might work.
Pay-in Solutions
Blockchain provides games with the ability to quickly receive payments from anywhere in the world. Suppose that you want to launch in-game tournaments with a participation fee. Though it’s a good idea and a valid way for monetization, no payment aggregator will allow smooth cash transactions, not to mention the fees they’ll take for such transactions. While you are dealing with documentation and wading through the time-consuming onboarding process, the relevance of tournaments in your game might wear out.
When it comes to blockchain technology, however, pay-in solutions become much simpler. With no complicated schemes and red tape, Web3 has become an interesting alternative to traditional payment methods.
Payouts
That’s an especially relevant issue for iGaming with cash tournaments, which becomes easier when adding blockchain technology. Otherwise, you have to do the impossible to make such payments happen.
The same applies to any other project willing to distribute large amounts of winnings, such as TON Running Club. Being a global international project with members from 36 countries, they face numerous difficulties, as very few payment systems can cope with such a large number of small one-time payouts. After connecting a blockchain solution, they moved from painful and tedious money allocation to one-click payouts.
In-game Marketplace
We all know some games suffer from grinding, especially MMOs. It applies not only to players who complain about spoiled gameplay but also to studios whose potential income gets taken away and brought to the black market.
While there’s no fair solution for players at this point, there is one for games. They have the ability to keep their earnings and receive royalties from secondary sales by creating an in-game marketplace with the help of low-code blockchain solutions.
Take a fledgling game like Escape from Zeya, which uses blockchain tools. It has increased its profit three times in only two months. They now mint digital assets, run primary and secondary sales marketplace, and ponder new ways of game monetization by availing of Web3 tools.
Special Event & Battle Passes
Blockchain allows games to create and sell passes to special events or create battle passes to enable players to unlock different rewards and new content. The fact that battle passes have been popular among contrasting audiences like MOBAs and Match-3 Puzzle players shows this feature's enormous monetization capabilities. As previously stated, setting up your commission-based in-game marketplace with P2P transactions would also work as a buffer for your game’s income.
Retention & Engagement
Accessibility and customization have always been the central tenet of user retention and monetization. Thanks to blockchain tools, games can incentivize users to spend more time in a game by adding the possibility to create, display, and, most importantly, trade unique in-game items, cosmetic add-ons, and more. Having complete rights to their in-game items, players are likelier to stay engaged and stick around longer. This way, games get both user-generated content and royalties from secondary sales.
How to Seamlessly Tap into the Blockchain World?
Not every studio wants to pour money into Web3 development and hire expensive professionals for the sake of experimentation.
However, getting your hands on low-code blockchain solutions can save you time and money while opening up new profit opportunities. Platforms like TON Play have already developed toolkits with all the necessary blockchain stuff: APIs, payment solutions, and the marketplace so that any game could seamlessly add Web3 elements.
TON Play is a platform to build and run games based on the TON blockchain. They've created a toolkit for smooth and, most importantly, free connection to blockchain. Using TON Play Toolkit, studios can add blockchain elements to any mobile or web game and port any web game to work directly inside Telegram, a multiplatform messaging service, via a Web App. That is a safe and straightforward way to determine if blockchain is viable for your game or if it’s best to stay within the traditional area.
TON Play provides games with simple pay-in solutions inside Telegram and near-instant payouts to cash winners in TON, the native cryptocurrency of the TON blockchain. Their APIs also help games create and publish unique digital assets, sell them directly to players in the in-game marketplace, develop different first-sale strategies, and profit from secondary sales.
Why TON and Telegram?
TON is a layer-1 blockchain that enables rapid transactions and supports a wide range of dApps. However, its main advantage over other popular blockchains such as Polygon and Solana is that it works in close connection with Telegram and shares access to over 700 million users in India, Brazil, Indonesia, the Philippines, and other major markets.
TON and Telegram are parts of one ecosystem, where users don’t need to jump through hoops to transfer payments, connect external wallets, or do any other complicated tasks. All the functions are already built-in, and P2P transfers will soon be as simple as a message to a friend. The TON blockchain boasts ultra-fast transactions, tiny fees, and easy-to-use apps. These are key factors to help you choose to take advantage of the TON platform as you get your feet wet in the Web3 waters.
Final Thoughts
In the current situation of a wait-and-see attitude to blockchain projects, Web3 is a real-world opportunity to increase ARPU and provide extra value to any and all games. So why not leverage the technology, brush up on the game concept, and implement low-code blockchain tools into your game?