As the year draws to an end, we’re asking some of the key members of the blockchain gaming sector what they thought about what happened in 2023, and what they expect in 2024. You can check out all our interviews in this series here.
Thomas Huxter is the director of Raptor PR.
What was the most significant news of 2023?
It’s not news exactly, but the way web3 brands just vanished from mainstream consciousness was significant. Sponsorships in sports and esports dried up, footballers and influencers (largely) stopped shilling NFTs on Twitter, web3 tracks and events fell off the agenda at events like SXSW and gaming conferences.
How did the focus of your business change this year?
We’ve always challenged the messaging of our web3 gaming clients to ensure it’s authentic and doesn’t overpromise. That has become even more important this year, where the web3 media has been absolutely eroded by layoffs and cutting through has become much more difficult.
It’s also fascinating to watch the language in this sector change over time, as trends fade and certain terms become tarnished by association.
What do you predict will be the most important trends in 2024?
- A bull market for tokens will put the spotlight on web3 again and speculators and bad actors will pile back in – and need the good guys to weed them out.
- Worthless NFTs won’t get the same traction as before but the use cases of tokenization will.
- Better games will hopefully expand the web3 gaming audience which in my view is still largely driven by investors and web3 evangelists rather than typical gamers, if there is such a thing.
What was your favourite blockchain game of the year?
R3v3nge is a fun one, downloaded on Ultra of course. I’ve also played a traditional indie PC game that was tokenized, which is kind of cool even if it makes no difference to the game itself.
What’s your New Year’s resolution and what resolution would you enforce on the industry?
Challenge everything with a critical eye. If the industry lets the (anticipated) bull run gloss over the mistakes of the past because people are happy to be making money again, web3 gaming is doomed to be a niche and unsustainable market, however pretty the graphics become.
In fact, bin ‘web3 gaming’ as a category altogether. It is – or should be – just gaming with additional, desirable features that wouldn’t be possible without blockchain technology.
Comments are closed.