🎯Web3 is the "track level" predicament of gaming.

A. Talent and product: The difficulty of breaking through the impasse.

Web3 gaming is undergoing a dual trial of talent and product. Data reveals that a mere 7% of game development studios worldwide exhibit a keen interest in Web3 technology, with a scant 50,000 full-time practitioners—a figure that pales in comparison to the traditional gaming industry's vast workforce of 3 million. This scarcity of talent is directly reflected in the quality of products. Currently, there are fewer than 2,000 active Web3 games on the blockchain, while the traditional gaming market sees the release of over 100,000 new games annually—a stark contrast in numbers. Moreover, most Web3 studios operate with teams of only 10 to 30 individuals, constrained by limited manpower and funding, resulting in games that struggle to rival the quality of traditional blockbusters. The genre is also confined, with RPGs and SLGs dominating the scene and few breakthroughs in sight, whereas the Steam platform boasts over 100 distinct game subcategories. This deficiency in product strength has ensnared Web3 games in the shackles of superficial gameplay such as "gold farming" and "airdrops," failing to captivate genuine gaming enthusiasts.

B. The spellbinding curse of narrative: From “Play to Earn” to “Tap to Earn”

After a surge of enthusiasm, GameFi is now entering a cooling-off period. The early X2Earn model relied excessively on token and NFT economies, lacking in-depth content and robust playability, which has led to an accelerated loss of users. The "Tap to Earn" model, spearheaded by the Ton ecosystem in 2024, further simplifies the gaming experience, transforming games from vehicles of entertainment into mere financial instruments. This distortion of narrative has not only failed to bring breakthroughs to the industry but has also caused Web3 games to stray further from their original direction, losing their way.

C. Commercialization and funding: The survival challenge in the gap.

The commercialization of Web3 gaming is currently grappling with a dual dilemma: the obsolescence of traditional models and the instability of new ones. The established monetization logic of mature Web2 games—such as in-app purchases, advertising, and pay-to-play—proves difficult to apply within the Web3 context, primarily because the user retention experience fails to create a positive feedback loop. Meanwhile, the asset sales and token economies that Web3 relies on are hindered by immature economic system designs, making it challenging to form a self-consistent closed loop. The severity of the funding environment exacerbates this challenge. In 2024, the average funding for Web3 games has fallen below 3 million, with most projects having a life cycle of less than 18 months. Angel round funding ranges from a mere 500,000 to 2 million, Series A funding increases to 2 million, Series A funding increases to 3 million to 8 million, and Series B funding rarely exceeds 8 million. The fragility of this funding chain leaves numerous development teams struggling to sustain long-term operations, thereby impeding the industry's progress.

These three intertwined dilemmas form an inescapable vicious cycle: a scarcity of talent leads to subpar product quality, which in turn causes commercialization difficulties, and these commercialization challenges exacerbate the loss of talent, ultimately causing the entire Web3 gaming ecosystem to stagnate. There are two key factors to breaking this impasse:

1. Promoting the Web3 transformation of Web2 games, though this involves intricate on-chain architectural adjustments and the integration of new asset systems.

2. Supporting the development of native Web3 games requires visionary and passionate teams to build the infrastructure and propel the industry toward maturity.