8 web3 gaming experts discuss hurdles and opportunities in the road to wider adoption

techcrunch.com:

The web3 gaming world has been a work in progress for a handful of years now. Studios in the space have found it difficult to gain Web 2 gamers’ trust and get over the image issues resulting from the “play-to-earn” era, and traction has been slower than predicted. So, what will it take to spur more mainstream gamers to pick up and play web3 games?

Amid the ongoing crypto bear market, investors and startups alike are diving deeper into the emerging space to answer that very question (among others) as they look to web3 gaming to bring in the next wave of users to crypto and the wider web3 industry.

So to find out how the industry is thinking about the next phase of growth in web3 gaming, we spoke to eight people with strong track records in the industry about the future of the space, how they’re tackling challenges and more.

For Ed Chang, head of gaming at Ava Labs, the web3 industry is still arguably young, but he’s hopeful that there’s space for web3 elements to be complementary to the gaming experience and add value. “We believe that all games can leverage blockchain elements, whether it’s truly owning your items, earning rewards for playing, or building payment rails for microtransactions, creators and modders,” he said.

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However, several of these people noted that web3 gaming still has some pretty difficult hurdles to overcome before it can go mainstream.

“The biggest challenge is that we are still figuring out how to design web3 games