Why will Web3 become the new business model for games?
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Why will Web3 become the new business model for games?
Open-economy enterprise ecosystems are better and more durable than closed-economy ones.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsWritten by: Justin Kan
Translated by: TechFlow intern
Why will Web3 become the new business model for gaming? Let's explain this with a simple example. Open-economy ecosystems are better and more durable than closed economies, where value is primarily created and owned by a single entity—think of free-market nations (like the United States) versus centrally planned economies (like the Soviet Union or Cuba).
In technology, there are many examples of open or partially open systems. The largest companies in tech have grown by building such platforms: Amazon Marketplace, Google and Apple’s mobile app stores, and Facebook’s original platform.
Right now, most major games operate on closed economies. In games like Fortnite and League of Legends, users can only buy digital skins, characters, and items from the game’s own store, and cannot freely trade in-game currencies or digital assets.
One exception is Roblox, which allows users to develop games within its metaverse and earn money from other players participating in those games. Roblox has a market value of $20 billion.
By turning games into open economic platforms, they can become much larger and more sustainable. Players will invest more deeply in their digital game assets, knowing they are “real,” and third-party companies can build on top of these assets as well.
Do you need blockchain for this? Not necessarily. A game could create an open economic platform by offering an open API that enables all its assets to be traded and transferred, while encouraging others to build on top of it. In fact, that would be simpler.
Using blockchain in your game (i.e., putting your digital currencies and assets on-chain) is just one way to create an open economy. It offers several advantages:
Trustless. You base your assets on a decentralized platform, so people don’t have to worry about you changing the rules arbitrarily or shutting down the platform later.
It’s open. People can start interacting with your assets without needing permission or communication from you, because everything operates through public smart contracts.
Leverages existing momentum. People already believe NFTs can hold value; by making your assets NFTs, you no longer need to convince your audience that your game items have real worth.
As people spend more time in digital worlds, they’ll gravitate toward games and metaverse spaces that offer deeper and broader experiences. Games with open economies will be better positioned to deliver this: greater economic incentives for players, more experiential content created by third parties, and a business model that shifts toward taxing every transaction within the ecosystem—generating massive long-term value.
None of this requires blockchain or NFTs—but blockchain and NFTs are one powerful path to achieving it, and currently the one with the strongest momentum.
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