Ryan Wyatt, CEO of Polygon Studios, responds to gamer backlash and hostility toward NFTs and blockchain integrations in video games.
Opinion
Wyatt: Current Web3 gaming product offerings are pretty underwhelming
“I would say the product offering that we have out in the market for gamers right now is pretty underwhelming, right? It's like, here's version 0.5, and that's okay. You gotta start somewhere.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Wyatt: Triple-A games taking 3-4 years will drive Web3 inflection
“If you look at these games that'll actually create a material inflection in web three, and blockchain in general will be these, like, high polish, triple-a type games that are gonna take three or four years to bake, right?”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Wyatt: Blockchain games will serve a significant audience, but not all games
“Blockchain games is going to serve a significant size of the total gaming audience, but not all of it, right? And nor, I would say, a lot of games have no business being a blockchain-based game. No interest. Doesn't do anything for it. Not helpful. Not product…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Wyatt: Competitive esports is a tiny share of total gaming watch time
“Which is hardcore competitive esports. It actually represents a very, very small amount of the total percentage of gaming watch time when you think about it, but it is now the most premium and upper echelon, and so it gets a lot of praise”
Assertion Supported
Wyatt: Gaming startup capital reached an all-time high in 2022
“There has never been this kind of capital being deployed to entrepreneurs in the history of gaming.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Wyatt: Metaverse transformation will take 10 to 20 years
“We should be very honest with ourselves that we are in, like, the first inning, if you will. Like, we got 10, 15, 20 years of this digital transformation, and we are at the very beginning of it. And so I think it's tempering expectations, like, you know, two y…”