tl;dr Summary: Ryan Wyatt announced on Twitter that he will be resigning his position as Global Head of YouTube Gaming to become CEO of Polygon Studios.
Web3 is on track to revolutionize the gaming industry as we know it. Web3 is giving developers the tools to generate value in never-before-seen ways. While this new frontier in gaming is exciting to many, it also has many detractors. Some view Web3 games as destructive to gaming and as merely a ploy by creators to ride the wave of the NFT craze to collect a big paycheck in the process. However, Ryan Wyatt, a legendary figure in the gaming industry also known pseudonymously as Fwiz, may just be the legitimacy factor Polygon Studios and the Web3 gaming community needs to usher in a new wave of gamers, content creators and developers.
What is Web3 Gaming?
To understand Web3 Gaming, it is important to first understand Web3, short for Web 3.0. As its name suggests, Web3 is the third evolution of the world wide web. Web 1.0 can be considered as the earliest version of the web which gave users from all over the globe the ability to share content. Web 2.0 was the age of social media and user-generated content. This gave rise to content creators on platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and Twitch.
Web3, built on blockchain technology, aims to be the decentralized and democratized version of the internet. It gives users countless new opportunities to exchange value, not just information. Web3 allows fans to invest in their favorite content creators, musicians, and artists through NFTs the same way investors would invest in shares of their favorite company on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). This is possible because of the blockchain’s innate ability to assign uniqueness and ownership to digital assets. In the case of gaming these assets can include the game’s art, in-game items, and all other intellectual property (IP) associated with a game.
What are the benefits of Web3 for Gamers and Game Developers?
NFTs give developers a plethora of ways to obtain development funds, generate revenue and protect their intellectual property.
Making video games that fans love can be expensive and requires a significant amount of upfront investment. Because of this, independent game developers often fail to make it past the significant development and business hurdles of making a viable product. Many of them decide to work for major game development studios for the job security it offers and because many of those initial hurdles of making a game are taken care of by the company. However, this may come at the expense of developers working on games they don’t want to make or that the fans don’t want to play.
With Web3, developers can create a community of fans around their game by selling unique NFTs with their art and rewarding the NFT holders with early testing of their game, real life experiences like exclusive access to tournaments or conferences and decision-making power for game features and business decisions. Each NFT trade could even generate revenue from royalties to the game developers.
Blockchain infrastructure also gives in-game assets interoperability with other decentralized apps. A gamer can take a weapon or vehicle in one game and use it in a completely different game. Gamers today spend real money and countless hours to upgrade their armor and weapons in one game. Those items are completely useless outside of that game. If a sequel were to come out for their game, they would need to repeat that entire process. With Web3 games, it would be possible for a player to transfer the upgraded items to the new game and either sell them on the in-game marketplace to profit from their hard work or use those very same items with the new characters.
What is Polygon and Polygon Studios?
Perhaps the most recognized blockchain for developing Web3 games is Ethereum. However, Ethereum has attracted millions of new users and the network has become highly congested. This has led to an explosion in the cost of transaction fees as more and more users are willing to pay top dollar to ensure their transactions get processed faster than everyone else’s. A $10 transaction can easily turn into a $100+ transaction during heavy network traffic. These high transaction fees are often a deterrent for everyday gamers to experience Web3 gaming.
Polygon is a Layer 2 solution which runs alongside Ethereum and does a lot of the validation and computation outside of the main Ethereum Network, simply providing a snapshot every once in a while. It was created to help solve the problem of slow transactions and high transaction fees. The transaction fees on Polygon’s network are often under a penny. Polygon has therefore become the new hot bed for game developers to build their decentralized games.
Polygon Studios is the NFT and gaming arm of Polygon founded in July 2021. They provide developers end-to-end support for everything from using Polygon’s technology platform, transitioning from Ethereum’s network, and even the marketing and business end of the game development process.
Why is Ryan Wyatt’s leadership significant for Polygon Studios?
Ryan Wyatt is a best-selling author, award winning leader and highly connected figure in the world of gaming. He has worked in the Gaming Industry for 14 years, including over 7 years as the Senior Director and Global Head of Gaming at YouTube Gaming. He is known by many in the gaming community as Fwiz and is admired by fans for taking time to answer their questions on Twitter and on YouTube live streams. Many in the industry credit Wyatt for making YouTube Gaming the worthy competitor to Twitch that it is today. Wyatt’s appointment as CEO is a significant win for Polygon Studios and a shocking affirmation of Web3 gaming’s legitimacy and prospects for entering the mainstream.
In his Twitter announcement (@Fwiz) on January 25th, 2022, he stated:
“I am fascinated by blockchain app development and am beyond thrilled to enter the Web3 space… In my role at Polygon Studios, I will be focused on growing the developer ecosystem through investment, marketing, and developer support and bridging the gap between Web2 and Web3. I’ll be leading the Polygon Studios organization across Gaming, Entertainment, Fashion, News, and more.”
Polygon Studios is now starting the new year with one of the gaming industry’s most respected leaders at the helm. Though everything is speculative at this point in time, it is exciting to imagine what the future of Web3 gaming could look like with someone like Wyatt bringing along investors, experts, and talent from the traditional gaming sector.
