Keep Web3 separated from the actual game

GamesBeat’s own Dean Takahashi and Consortium9’s Brooks Brown took a few minutes to talk about Web3 gaming at the GamesBeat Summit. Brown is of an almost unheard of mindset when it comes to Web3 and crypto integration.

In short, he doesn’t think it’s viable. Brooks, historically, is rather anti-crypto and Web3 in gaming. He’s never seen the point in trying to make games that way when practically every example of a crypto game works fine without that stuff.

But there’s definitely some kind of a use case in the stuff around a game. Just not the gameplay itself.

“It’s not about bringing crypto into games,” said Brown. “It’s about understanding how finance and crypto and speculation impinges on games.”

Brown takes inspiration from the sports world. Pick a sport. Any sport. Anyone can learn to play it with very little investment. From there a person can play and practice until they’re amazing at it. The actual gameplay of a sport doesn’t change just because you throw more money at it. The rules of, say, hockey don’t suddenly change because you dumped a few thousand dollars into it.

Brown’s mission is pretty simple when you boil it down. He wants to design something that allows players not interested in spending money to enjoy themselves just as much as players willing to spend a lot of money. He wants a game to be a game and Web3 elements to be outside the core gameplay.

That’s Nor, which is described on Consortium9’s website as a platform for play. It’s also a fully-realized universe with its own economy, built with players, by players, and for players. Nor is where you’ll live, die and compete for coin and glory.

“If we were to take what fantasy football does and we were to extend it to not just winning and losing inside of one game,” said Brown. “But put it for all games? And on top of it add in broadcast rights, team ownership, advertising, sponsorships … all the things that make that large scale economy that sports survives with? That’s our game. It’s a game of games inside of it.”

Keeping Web3 out of gaming

Brown points out something pretty obvious in hindsight. It’s a little weird how popular games, with lots of watchers online, don’t monetize that aspect very well. It’s always something outside the actual game which takes over that aspect. Places like Twitch.

“You get no revenue, no say, no rights,” said Brown. “And we’ve kind of allowed this. We’re kind of okay with this.”

Where Web3 comes into play for Brown starts here, outside of the actual gameplay. Brown envisions a world where players get to play, and if they’re good enough they get to play in tournaments. Everyone else can sponsor players, or build a team, or advertise with them, or any number of other things. If people want to make money in a game, Brown thinks it should happen outside of the core gameplay.

It might be the answer to Web3 and crypto in gaming. Gamers might be less likely to absolutely hate it if it isn’t a core aspect of the gameplay. If a player can be assured that the reason they lost isn’t because someone spent more money in-game they might be likely to stick around and enjoy the experience.

“Gaming itself? The underlying play itself? Web3 is not the future,” said Brown.