In this TechNode Global Q&A with Quang Nguyen, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of MetaDOS, we learn about the challenges and opportunities in Web3 gaming.
MetaDOS aims to become the next generation of Esport by offering an innovative Free to Play Battle Royale game combined with blockchain technology to satisfy both traditional and blockchain gamers.
Kindly share a brief introduction of yourself and MetaDOS.
I am Quang, Founder and CEO of MetaDOS. I have more than 10 years of experience in the game industry including game development, publishing, and studio investment. Founded in late 2021 and having more than 30 members at this moment, MetaDOS is a top game studio in Vietnam focusing on Esport game development on Web3. MetaDOS aims to become the next generation of Esport by offering an innovative Free to Play Battle Royale game combined with blockchain technology to satisfy both traditional and blockchain gamers.
How is Web3 driving innovation across the gaming industry?
Blockchain games are among the most popular use case of Web3. Web3 games are technically digital games that utilize blockchain technology to store data and make transactions. The underlying component of the economy in web3 games are tangibly owned assets and a liquid market to trade and sell those assets. It makes web3 in gaming a part of individualized economies where one can have genuine ownership over objects used within games.
Incorporating blockchain mechanisms in web3 games has caused massive adoption of concepts like play-to-earn and NFT. The in-game assets in such games are mostly in the form of non-fungible tokens or NFTs. These tokens promise proof of ownership and seamless trading of digital assets. The play-to-earn gaming model brought an opportunity for players not only to play and relax but also to earn while doing so.
How does Web3 contribute toward sustainability? What impact will this have on industries?
Besides bringing the new concept of “earning” when gamers enjoy blockchain games, Web3 provides an ideal solution for gamers to own their digital items in actuality and trading those digital assets be on their needs. Moreover, gamers can use their NFT to play across multigame–this thing helps players and game makers can stick together in the long term. Finally, the decentralization of Web3 will help everything related to gameplay records, assets, and transactions to be transparent. That helps Web3 game grow sustainable in the future.
What are the three (3) key challenges relevant to building Web3 products? How is your team able to address these challenges?
Firstly, Web3 gaming is still a developing concept in business model. After the up and down of “play to earn” games wave, none of Web3 games can prove the sustainability of this model. We need Web3 games with free to play model, where all gamers (crypto or non-crypto) can entertain the true quality of the game and utilize the power of Web3 step by step.
The second challenge of Web3 games is user experience. People who play Web2 games have a lot of difficulties when they start to play Web3 games. Besides building up a great game, Web3 game projects must find out solutions to solve this challenge.
Finally, during the bear time market, all Web3 projects have difficulty raising enough funds from investors. Great Web3 games need time and money to accomplish, startup founders need to optimize and find some way to survive.
MetaDOS consists of key members who have many years experience in Web2 game development and blockchain game projects, that’s why we fully acknowledge of above challenges. Moreover, MetaDOS has support from our advisor team, who always guide us to have the best strategy for the project to go sustainable in long term.
Please share any case studies, success stories, data, or industry insights that can highlight these.
Overall, “play to earn” gamefi projects lost more than 90 percent of token valuation during this bear time. This caused most of these games losing players and run out of money to survive.
It takes around 15 steps for a new player when they join a Web3 game. It’s really complicated compared to Web2 games and this unfriendly user experience limit web3 games in onboarding new players.
Most VCs have been inactive to invest in web3 game projects since the last 6 months.
This TechNode Global Q&A is part of the ORIGIN Innovation Awards 2022 series. MetaDOS is a winner in the Startup Leader of the Year: Web3 Disruptors award category.