Author: Jack O’Holleran, Coindesk; Translated by: Tao Zhu, Golden Finance
The AAA gaming space is huge ("AAA" means the biggest games made by the biggest developers). Specifically, it's bigger than the movie and music industries combined—almost 300% bigger. The stories are better and more powerful, and the overall experience is more satisfying and richer.
A great example is the Grand Theft Auto (GTA) 6 trailer, which has been viewed over 184 million times since December. Massive games like GTA have firmly established themselves as gaming phenomena and cultural and economic powerhouses in the entertainment industry.
Take Bethesda Game Studios, for example. From Fallout 4 to Starfield, the number of developers behind each game has increased by 266%. From big-budget AAA console games to massive mobile virality, the esports industry is growing in lockstep, with streamers on YouTube and Twitch leading a revolution in content consumption. The esports audience has grown to over 640 million, up over 140% since 2019. Gaming’s entertainment diversity spans all mediums.
How Web3 is a Game Changer
Applying Web3 technology to the stack will change the AAA economic model, opening up the market to global gamers and enthusiasts who watch more games than they play them and want to participate in the economy. Gaming companies can profit not only in their own walled gardens, but also in every NFT market around the world. In addition to opening up to a wider market, the scope of purchases will also increase significantly. Land, assets, cars, skins, gear, and more will be available to global buyers, fans, and enthusiasts.
This all sounds great, but so far it has not made an impact due to technical complexity, UX friction, and scaling issues. These are significant barriers to mass adoption. The answer to solving this UX and scalability puzzle is to implement an invisible blockchain experience — it just looks like it.
Thanks to recent innovations in UX-centric products such as wallets, fiat currency on-ramps, frictionless compliance tools, and easy-to-use marketplaces, the UX barrier has been addressed. However, scaling to serve hundreds of millions of smart contracts and daily transactions on a single blockchain remains a challenge. Thanks to modular application chains, this global scaling challenge is finally being solved.
To be clear, this type of game will obviously not be built on the ETH mainnet, and frankly, it is too much for any current monolithic chain. If you want a true on-chain gaming experience, there are too many simultaneous events in large global games for traditional technology of monolithic chains or rollups to handle. This is mainly due to congestion caused by "gas-guzzling" applications or "noisy neighbors". The only real solution is a horizontally scalable blockchain, coupled with modularity and a gas-free experience for the end user.
Modular application chain solves the noisy problem
The "noisy neighbor" problem is a significant hindrance in blockchain networks, where one resource-hungry application can monopolize network resources, causing performance issues and security risks for all users. This problem is like a noisy tenant in an apartment building disrupting the entire complex. In blockchain, a single application consuming too many resources can create a bottleneck, slowing down transactions and increasing latency for everyone sharing the network. This is particularly problematic when a popular game or viral AI application drives up block space prices and causes network slowdowns.
Modular application chains solve these scalability challenges through horizontal scalability and modularity. They provide a solution that enhances the performance and security of decentralized applications by operating as independent blockchain networks within a larger ecosystem. Each application chain operates like a soundproof apartment, ensuring that disruptive applications on one chain will not affect other chains.
Each modular application chain has its own dedicated computing power, storage, and bandwidth, preventing any single application from hogging resources and maintaining the balance of the entire network. Although these application chains are independent, they inherit security properties from the entire node network, providing strong protection similar to a high-security building, where each apartment benefits from overall security measures.
Modular application chains also support seamless chain communication, allowing applications to interact, bridge and share data securely at zero cost. This ensures that users can still collaborate and share information when needed while enjoying privacy.
The Web3 industry is now equipped with the technology to support the next generation of AAA games, aiming to enable an “invisible web3 experience” where players can simply play games in a global marketplace without having to worry about the underlying technology. This creates a win-win situation, generating more revenue for games and providing players with a superior experience with enhanced transparency, trustlessness, and true asset ownership.
The infrastructure is in place—the next step is the arrival of the big games.
