The rise of Web3 gaming has not been without its problems, from expensive NFT buy-ins to lacklustre titles to play. There’s also the problem of where to go and find these kinds of videogames in the first place. Ryu Games aims to solve that problem with Flame, a Web3 games store and marketplace that’s about to launch its beta.
When it comes to PC gaming, Valve’s Steam platform is the de facto marketplace all PC gamers go to and that’s exactly what Ryu Games wants for Flame. And to do that its going in the right direction by hiring former Steam founder Rick Ellis as the company’s Chief Product Officer (CPO).
Bringing with him a wealth of experience across console, PC and mobile gaming development, when it comes to Web3 gaming Ellis remarked in a statement: “Games that use NFTs and crypto are in their infancy, but their potential has already drawn millions of gamers to play these sometimes very simple games. The past few years have seen incredible advances in reducing blockchain’s negative environmental impact and lowering the cost of transactions. Meanwhile, serious game developers are heads down building the first generation of AAA titles built around open economies.”
“The last missing piece before mass adoption is a user experience to launch these games, he continued. “The technical and UX challenges Flame is solving are going to bridge the gap between gamers everywhere and the next internet — one that is owned by the users and not central authorities.”
Flame will serve not only as a Web3 videogame store and marketplace, it’ll encompass a multi-chain wallet and game launcher to help simplify the whole process – which up to know has been a little fragmented.
“The fact that millions of people are fighting through the friction and pain of onboarding to play crypto games and using NFTs is a testament to how fundamental a shift in blockchain tech can be to human-technology interaction,” adds Ross Krasner, CEO of Ryu Games. “For the first time, people truly own digital assets and can interact in permissionless systems. Gaming is always first to adopt new technologies, and to me, Flame is the last missing piece before Web3 games are just ‘games.’ We’re thrilled to bring on Rick, who built Steam, which today had almost 30 million concurrent users. To put in perspective, only about 3 million people have ever interacted with an NFT.”
Flame isn’t available at the moment, with a beta launch on the way. And it hasn’t yet revealed what titles the platform will offer or some of the finer details regarding how it operates. But it’s certainly looking to benefit from Steam’s ban on blockchain games and NFTs.
However, Flame isn’t the only one looking to explore this section of the growing Web3 market. Last month saw the reveal of LootRush, a similar Steam-like platform that had just secured a $12 million seed round. And then there’s Kongregate, the browser-based, Web2 gaming platform that’s turning to Web3.
As gmw3 receives further updates regarding Flame, we’ll let you know.