Urvit Goel, vice president of global business development for games at Polygon, believes that games that integrate non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have a natural advantage over traditional games that do not allow users to sell their in-game items.
Goel spoke candidly with Cointelegraph in Seoul last week about Polygon’s push to help NFT gaming proliferate and why South Korean gaming companies like Neowiz and Nexon are diving headfirst into this. space.
One of Goel’s main arguments is that the traditional business model against which NFT games compete may be inherently weaker. In traditional games, users often purchase in-game items with real money, but cannot sell them for dollar value.
Nevertheless, In most games in the game finance (GameFi) arena, users can buy items as non-fungible tokens and sell them when they are done playing. Referring to the traditional model as “money in, money out,” Goel stressed that players should be able to get back at least some of the dollar value they put into a game:
“We just want to give users the ability to own the content they buy. And if they decide to sell it, great, if they decide to keep it, great […] But even if they get a penny back, it’s better than nothing, right?”
Goel said he saw clear signs that traditional game companies are preparing to make big inroads into GameFi, starting with South Korean gaming giant Nexon, owner of the MapleStory title. In June it announced that it would put a version of its flagship title on-chain as MapleStory N, according to mmorpg, a gaming media outlet.
Polygon has also partnered with South Korea’s Neowiz to put new and existing titles on-chain.
He pointed out that the entry of these big companies is creating “a little domino effect” in the industry to “show that they are still innovative”. Goel hinted that the heads of the big firms entering the blockchain space must have great confidence in the technology or they would not wear their top-tier GameFi titles:
“These developers don’t have to go into the blockchain space to have successful businesses. They are already generating hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars of revenue on the traditional web of teams.”
Goel’s notions of gaming and blockchain are in line with ROK Capital’s Anthony Yoon, who told Cointelegraph that GameFi and crypto are a “natural fit” for publishers.
Part of Goel’s confidence in the bright future for NFT and GameFi gaming comes from the buzz within the communities. Although he said he didn’t have any hard data to back up his opinion, he believes many people within large communities that have “millions of followers” are excited about new gaming products being brought to their channels:
“So to me, that data speaks much louder than an article written by a journalist about why ‘X’ NFTs will be good.”
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