They said that blockchain and gaming were a real match. The only problem is that this meeting has gotten very, very ugly over the past year. The decline of the play-to-earn model and the disappearance of capital from the crypto sector as a whole has hit the GameFi sector particularly hard.
This week on the podcast, I interviewed Russell Bennett, CEO of Metacade, to discuss the state of the blockchain gaming industry. Metacade aims to be part of a second wave of gaming projects that Russell says needs to learn from the mistakes of the first wave.
We talked about what led to the failure of so many play-to-earn projects last year. The model was fundamentally flawed, Russell explains, and failed to adapt as the environment around crypto changed.
Of course, the bear market as a whole was an unavoidable topic, as it tends to be. I asked Russell what it was like to launch a project in the middle of this crypto winter and what differences he noticed from last year.
We discussed the damage to the reputation of the space and whether the industry can get back on track in the future. We talked about the scandals of the past year (we don’t need to name names) and how that has impacted games.
I also asked Russell about native tokens and whether launching without one could be problematic – anyone who follows my work will know that I am often skeptical of the need for them!
We discussed what it’s like to be an entrepreneur in the industry and how daunting the current environment is. Starting a business is difficult even in the best of times, but the recent macroeconomic environment has turned the global economy upside down. Add in the volatility of crypto-currency by a factor of ten, and there’s a lot to talk about here.
We also mentioned regulation. Is this important for decentralized projects launched in the sector, especially following recent developments in the US (goodbye BUSD)?
It’s been a year of ups and downs for crypto-currency as a whole, but none more so than those operating in games. Overall, it was a wide-ranging discussion touching on all areas of the nascent crypto sector that is GameFi, while also discussing the broader crypto market and the future direction of the industry as a whole.