People are offering various solutions to the situation. Here are some popular takes on why GameFi is "dead":
1. Product perspective - The game should be fun
Yes, a game should fundamentally be fun to be successful, but if the game is fun, why not just launch it in Web2? It’s a waste to use that game for short-term monetization, struggling with investors who are dealing with a downward-only chart and crying 24/7.
2. Tokenomics perspective - Token sinks should be diverse
When the purpose is driven by speculative token returns, adding sinks and offering discounted rates for token purchases won’t work once the outcome (price) is revealed.
Staking and expanding platform utilities may temporarily prevent the downside, but there’s always a cost.
Promising future airdrops with another game just creates another P2E Ponzi scheme.
3. Onboarding perspective - Web3 is still hard to use, and the market is still early for mass adoption
We’re in 2024, not 2021. We need to get past these tired excuses.
While these statements are valid, they’re not sufficient to address the unsustainability of the current Web3 gaming model.
The core problem with the current Web3 game is that they’re extracting value from players using the same monetization playbook of Web2 mobile gaming, under the guise of "play-to-airdrop."
The Web2 monetization playbook is straightforward: the studio controls the economy, which demotivates or blocks a P2P economy, as they sell assets freely.
As value is being transferred in one direction, there’s no reason for assets to hold value or for value to be exchanged.