Blockchain needs a killer game to reach the mainstream

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Despite all that blockchain, crypto, and NFTs are in the news these days, it's pretty obvious that it's not really mainstream. Many people know about the blockchain, but few people can explain what it is. Stardust's Canaan Linder, Making Fun's John Welch and Playful's Paul Bettner join Digital's Amy Luo on our GamesBeat Summit Next 2022 panel, "How Blockchain Games Will Go Mainstream".

The group tries to explain exactly that, while offering ideas on how to get wider adoption.

This kind of knowledge doesn't happen until people have an undeniable reason to delve into it. When you look at the game as a whole, there are definitely hints of a pattern. At the start of the game, Space Invaders and Pac-Man clung to the collective consciousness. Games existed before them, but these two arcade games really advanced gaming in a mainstream way.

Years later, the game was a known quantity, but that was nerd territory. Gamers can play anything and everything, but sports games have brought consoles into the mainstream. Personally, everyone I knew owned a Super Nintendo or a Sega Genesis. Not just peers, but parents.

My friends used to play games like Super Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog. Their parents played on the PGA Tour 96.

"Basically, whenever there's a new platform or paradigm shift," Welch said. "The key is understanding which rules that have been written are going to stay dominant and stay literal, and which are going to be completely broken."

Later console generations repeated the pattern. The game was more mainstream, but suddenly it wasn't just for nerds anymore. A whole new type of player seemed to arise; people who only played the latest Madden, or Call of Duty and nothing else.

The rise of mobile gaming is similar. Farmville, Candy Crush and Angry Birds have taken the world by storm. I've seen parents obsess over these insanely popular mobile games, to the point of buying new laptops and phones to play them.

Every example I can think of has a great game. A killer app. I think blockchain games need something like this to really explode in a mainstream way. I sometimes contact my mom about things like this, just to see where she's at.

Right now, she knows about the blockchain. When I asked, she specifically warned me not to invest in bitcoin. Blockchain gambling, in particular, is not on his radar. Blockchain, for her, is intrinsically linked to crypto. Crypto is something she is wary of.

Blockchain needs a killer app to go mainstream. But more than that, it needs a killer app to dissociate itself from being solely crypto-related. He needs a game that's completely easy to access and addictive enough to keep people playing. It doesn't have to be a game either. Just something. Something to attract people.

Once this is accomplished, the overarching goal of using blockchain technology has a chance to take over.

"Games are intranets right now. Blockchain is a way to interconnect all games," Linder said. "NFTs and blockchain really represent the means to connect all of these independent, disparate games and communities into one big gaming ecosystem."

Without it, it may never reach the general public.

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