The gaming industry continues to rapidly evolve as a focal point for interactions between Web2 and Web3 technologies. In recent times, numerous gaming companies have incorporated support for digital asset wallets and NFT-based reward systems or have launched their own metaverse platforms.
The growing significance of GameFi in the Web3 economy has led companies like Animoca Brands to believe that it will serve as a stepping stone for the development of the metaverse.
Yat Siu, co-founder of Animoca Brands, made these remarks during the ‘Future Blockchain Summit Dubai 2022’ event, emphasizing the company’s dedication to the gaming industry due to its close alignment with the concept of the metaverse.
Siu highlighted that GameFi is poised to act as a launchpad for the metaverse and as an introduction to digital property for people.
Siu also pointed out that a substantial portion of the $200 billion gaming ecosystem’s recent gains primarily benefit backers and advertisers of companies such as Facebook and Apple, rather than gamers or gaming companies.
He expressed the belief that the advent of Web3 has the potential to disrupt this monopoly and shift power into the hands of gamers and game companies.
“More than half of the value generated within the gaming industry flows to Apple, Facebook, and Google. How much of that value is reinvested in the gaming industry? None. This is the current challenge, and it’s adversely affecting the ecosystem.”
Nevertheless, Siu stressed that the metaverse will not be a singular or centralized entity but rather a combination of multiple interconnected metaverses. He added that the metaverse will “foster new economies and revolve around the concept of digital ownership.”
“The metaverse represents an entire economy for us. We do not intend to evaluate the future of these companies solely based on their profit and loss (P&L) statements.
Instead, we aim to gauge their success in terms of GDP. Just as we cannot precisely quantify how much GAS contributes to the value of Ethereum, we view the metaverse as a holistic entity where all elements contribute to success. Therefore, while it may be theoretically referred to as the ‘metaverse,’ in practice, it functions as a digital property.”
On another note, Animoca Brands is a Hong Kong-based software company and venture capital firm that has made substantial investments in various ‘metaverse’ projects. Last July, the company successfully secured $78 million in funding to further advance the concept of the “open metaverse.”