NFT games “only scratch the surface” of what is possible – Animoca’s Yat Siu

Animoca Brands co-founder Yat Siu believes nonfungible token (NFT) games only scratch the surface of what is possible, and predicts that entirely new game models will be developed as a result of digital ownership.

Speaking to Cointelegraph, Siu compared the potential growth of NFT gaming to mobile phone gaming, which started relatively niche and clumsy in its formative stages before becoming the most popular method of gaming worldwide.

“Mobile gaming brought a form factor for a type of game that we’ve never seen before, you know, one-handed gameplay and things like that, and innovations around how you play with AI [artificial intelligence]. Because of the fact that you have this limited form factor, it became the most popular form factor in gaming,” he said.

Siu commented that although many blockchain games themselves also have a clumsy experience at this stage, the entire sector is still quite new. As such, it is only a matter of time before more advanced models are created that are designed around the ideas of digital ownership, interoperability and financial benefit to the user:

“With NFT games, we’ve only really scratched the surface. Everyone is very focused on ownership. […] I think it’s going to mushroom into everything and we’re going to see new types of game formats emerge because of the ownership that we weren’t able to before.”

In the interim, Siu pointed to metaverse gaming platforms and massively multiplayer online gaming as models that fit well with NFTs, as “you can trade goods and you have deep levels of economic design” that make sense.

The Animoca co-founder also claimed that many current users are willing to accept that the blockchain gaming experience is not necessarily smooth at this stage.

He suggested that this was because they are aware of the importance of being able to own a stake in the games, as opposed to the traditional model where people sink capital into games that they can never retrieve:

“I mean, when you think about it [blockchain games]you can say it is a UX [user experience] nightmare. But because of ownership, people put up with it not only because it’s valuable, but because it’s meaningful because this is my country, this is my car.”

When asked when NFT technology will reach a point of seamlessness that even a grandmother can use it without realizing it, Siu emphasized that this will likely be through the widespread tokenization of physical things, NFT integration with commonly used services and how people interact with each other.

Related: Blockchain games and metaverse projects raised $1.3 billion in Q3: DappRadar

He outlined that as the world continues to become more digitally focused, children will naturally want digital things.

“Grandmothers are likely to buy a digital item for their grandchildren as a way not only as a gift that is relevant to them, but also as a way to interact,” he said, adding that conversely, a grandchild can with give their grandmothers a digital illustration that they drew:

“We are going to have a digital world. These digital artifacts and the art and the creativity and the games and the tools that are going to grow into thousands and thousands and thousands of small and medium businesses that are going to do this.”