The basic logic of "pay to win" in the industry may become the poison for games to enter the metaverse.

The gaming market is growing fast, and its surge is only matched by the new buzzwords that are flooding the ecosystem. Marketers and policymakers have seized on hot trends such as blockchain in gaming and the "metaverse" in an effort to stay ahead of trends rather than keep catching up.

The appeal is obvious because of the inherent connection between the blockchain, the metaverse, and gaming. Gaming has always been at the forefront of digital IP, and most agreed-upon visions of the metaverse rely on virtual environments commonly found in games.

No matter how you look at it, I believe the metaverse and blockchain have an interconnected future.

Let's start with the example of blockchains, and more specifically, NFTs. Collecting items of varying rarity, often randomly distributed, forms some of the core "loops" in many games (eg, kill monsters, get better weapons, kill stronger monsters, get better weapons, etc.), and Collecting "skins" (ie, different outfits for game characters) is one of the most favored paradigms for microtransactions in games.

The way gaming-related NFTs are currently being discussed is very likely to fall into this trap: killing the core game loop with a financial fast-track.

Now, NFTs are positioned as a natural pairing with a variety of rare items with permanent, traceable, and open value. A recent game introduced a novel approach where NFTs became in-game gear that other creators could use to build their own virtual worlds. It's not hard to imagine a game built around NFT items, and it will always come.

But game developers with the aforementioned "loot loop" have long faced a problem with "game studios" violating the game's terms of service to obtain in-game currency and items, which are then sold to players for real money. The solution is to implement an "Auction House" in the game, where players can buy items from each other for real money.

Unfortunately, this has unwanted side effects. As noted game psychologist Jamie Madigan has pointed out, our brains have evolved to pay special attention to unexpected and rewarding rewards. When most of the fun in some games comes from unexpected or random rewards, being able to easily get known rewards for real money takes away the fun from the game.

The way gaming-related NFTs are currently being discussed is very likely to fall into this trap: killing the core game loop through financial fast-tracking. The most extreme example of this phenomenon commits the greatest sin in gaming - a "pay to win" game in which players with large sums of money can gain a material advantage in competitive play.

Blockchain games such as Axie Infinity have rapidly increased enthusiasm for the concept of "play to earn", where players can earn money by selling tokenized resources or characters earned in a blockchain gaming environment. Blockchain gaming is approaching a dangerous "pay to win" scenario.

Does it matter in this case? People still don't know. Does anyone care enough about the core game itself rather than the potential market value of NFTs or earning potential through gaming? More fundamentally, if real-world benefits are the focus, is it a real game or a gamified micro-economy? "Game studios" are not illegal activities, but the core mechanics of games?

The technology culture around blockchain has enhanced the ability to solve very difficult problems that very few people care about. The solution (like many problems in technology) involves reassessment from a more humane approach. In the case of games, there are some basic gameplay and game psychology issues that need to be addressed before these technologies gain mainstream attention.

The Metaverse also has quite a few related examples. Even if you're not particularly interested in gaming, you've certainly heard of the concept after Mark Zuckerberg bet the future of Facebook on it. As exciting as it is, the fundamental problem is that the metaverse is currently immature. The closest analogs are large digital game spaces (like Fortnite) or sandboxes (like Roblox ). However, many brands and marketers who haven't really understood the game are trying to seize this opportunity quickly, although it's unlikely to materialize anytime soon.

Games can be seen as a supporting axis of the metaverse - the way we communicate, navigate and think in virtual spaces is based on game-based mechanics and systems. I can even predict that the first "metaverse" players will be gamers who are proficient and feel more comfortable in virtual environments.

By now, you've probably seen a pattern: We're more interested in the "future" application of games, and not so much about the "now" of games. As people realize that games have a major impact on society, the categories span from sociology to fields such as medicine. But only recently has the business world paid more attention to it.

The development of the game has created huge opportunities, but the implementation of these possibilities still faces many difficulties. Part of the reason is that our attention is misguided.

On the way of the game entering the metaverse, it is impossible to break out of this blind spot by "paying to win". We have to work hard to be successful.