Polygon’s Vice President of Global Business Development for Games Urvit Goel believes that games that incorporate non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have a natural advantage over traditional games that do not allow users to sell in-game items.
Joel spoke candidly with Cointelegraph in Seoul last week about Polygon’s push to help NFT games go viral, and why South Korean game publishers like Neowiz and Nexon are plunging into space.
One of the main arguments made by Joel is that the traditional business model that NFT games compete with may be inherently weaker. In traditional games, users usually buy in-game items with real money, but they cannot sell these items to redeem any US dollar value.
However, with most games in the Game Finance space, users can purchase items as non-perishable tokens and sell them when they finish playing the game. Joel referred to the traditional model as “money in, not money out,” and stressed that players should be able to get back at least some of the dollar value they put into the game:
“We just want to give users the ability to own the content they buy. And if they choose to sell it, that’s great if they choose to keep it, great […] but even if you get a penny back, it’s better than nothing, right?”
Joel said he’s noticed clear signs that traditional game publishers are preparing for big payments in GameFi, starting with South Korean gaming giant Nexon, which owns the MapleStory title. It announced in June that it would put a version of its flagship title on the series as MapleStory N, according to mmorpg, a gaming news media outlet.
Polygon has also partnered with South Korea’s Neowiz to put together new and existing titles in the series.
He noted that the entry of such large companies creates “a bit of a domino effect” in the industry in order to “show that they are still innovative”. Joel hinted that CEOs of major companies entering the blockchain space must have a great deal of faith in the technology or else they will not decorate their top-tier titles for GameFi:
“These developers don’t have to go into the blockchain to have a successful business. They are already generating hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars in revenue in teamwork on the traditional web.”
Joel’s concepts about gaming and blockchain are aligned with ROK Capital’s Anthony Yun, who told Cointelegraph that GameFi and crypto are a “natural fit” for publishers.
Related: Game Developer Explains Why Blockchain Should Be ‘Invisible’ in P2E Games: KBW 2022
Part of Goel’s confidence in the bright future of NFT gaming and GameFi comes from the uproar of the communities. Although he said he doesn’t have hard data to back up his opinion, he believes that many people within the large communities that have “millions of followers” are excited about new game products being brought to their channels:
“To me, this data speaks much louder than an article written by a journalist about why ‘X’ NFT would be good.”
