Web2 games run on centralized servers, which hold all in-game data in one place. Closed ecosystems and limited player ownership are the other salient features of Web2 gaming. Nintendo, Ubisoft, Microsoft Xbox Game Studios, and other heavyweights in the industry dominate the market. The gaming firm managing the centralized server is responsible for all game content, user data, and server maintenance. Users don't control digital assets like accounts, characters, weapons, and skins; the company does. Web2 companies face criticism for heavily promoting in-app purchases, which can push players to spend more than they can afford. Web3 improves on legacy gaming, but we have yet to see a full transition Many players have made the transition to Web3, inspired by high processing power, better graphics, and other appealing enhancements. Web3 games improve the Web2 gaming experience via decentralized storage and hosting, which are safer, more stable, and more transparent than centralized servers with their single point of failure. Blockchain technology is used to guarantee the fairness of in-game features. However, Web3 gaming's most appealing aspect is the play-to-earn model, which replaces Web2's pay-to-play. This model allows players to earn crypto or in-game assets while having fun. Blockchain technology gives players true ownership of their in-game assets, which they can sell, trade, purchase, or otherwise use across platforms and games. Still, it has been a rocky road for Web3. In 2023, around a third of blockchain gaming projects were either canceled or discontinued. Projects struggle with user retention, sustainability, and economic balance. True engagement is achieved through strategic and exciting gameplay, appealing rewards, and a vibrant community where players share their achievements and other aspects of their performance. Bridging the gap between entertainment and profit Web3 gaming platforms like Funtico are bridging the gap between rewards and entertainment, emerging as a viable choice for Web2 game publishers and evolving into gamer-centric next-generation platforms. Backed by investors such as Avalanche and Alpha Crypto Capital, Funtico crafts and delivers high-quality, competition-based games that put the power in players' hands while regularly distributing rewards based on engagement with the platform. The gaming experience blends with technological prowess seamlessly. Funtico recently concluded " The Start of a Revolution ," a $100,000 tournament with exciting performances, battles, and strategic maneuvering culminating in big rewards for the best players. It raised the bar for competitive gaming with its enticing prize pool, offering substantial rewards as well as prestige. There was significant engagement around the tournament on social media, with players sharing not only strategies but also highlights and experiences. Previous tournaments have included Solitaire Slam, It Only Takes 5, Who Wants to be King, and Crypto OGs' Space Race. One of the platform's most recent games is Bingo Rampage, with tournaments offering high weekly rewards in the native token $TICO. Stronger community engagement will determine the success of the next wave of play-to-earn games, according to Pavel Antohe, Funtico's Chief Product Officer, who took part in a panel on the best P2E strategies for decentralized platforms at AIBC 2025 in Dubai. He drew attention to the importance of building trust through meaningful interactions and incentives. Web3 gaming platforms must ensure players have full control over their assets to facilitate sustainability and merge familiar Web2 experiences with the benefits Web3 decentralization brings to attract and onboard more users. Funtico partnered with Ludo to leverage the latter's advanced reputation and trust technology and make sure only real users can play games. The goal is to eliminate bots and enhance player engagement by fostering a genuine, community-driven environment. Ludo's technology ensures that only users with established reputations take part in its ecosystem. It features advanced filtering to guarantee there are no bots among the 500 recipients of Ludo's $TICO airdrop. This collaboration sets the stage for a long-term partnership emphasizing sustainable, community-driven Web3 growth. It goes without saying the goal of a game should go beyond clicking on a cookie (Cookie Clicker) or something equally mindless. A goal like that loses meaning quickly, and the fact that Web3 is rife with bots is an equally powerful deterrent to engagement. Bots can exploit loopholes in Web3 games, using them to inflate prices or farm tokens artificially. Users exploited bots to get more tokens in the Hamster Kombat and Catizen airdrops. In decentralized contexts, conventional anti-cheat measures are insufficient or easy to bypass. Early Web3 games focused on speculative NFT trading instead of true engagement, resulting in the misconception that the games prioritized financial speculation over experience. While speculative trading will not disappear in 2025, experts expect a steady pivot toward projects with exclusive perks, rewards programs, or real services connected to asset ownership. Striking a balance: Rewards, community, and engagement Web3 games can balance player rewards and platform profit by selling NFTs and governance tokens and obtaining royalties from secondary markets. They can achieve recurring revenue through subscription models like battle passes. Staking mechanisms encourage player retention while providing an additional income stream. Games that launch a custom blockchain collect transaction fees, and part of the revenue can go toward rewarding the best players. Measures to balance community collaboration and competition include encouraging players to form guilds or DAOs and cooperate to earn rewards while competing against other groups. The platform can introduce quests where players need to collaborate and ranking systems for competitive incentives. It rewards competitive achievements (tournaments) as well as collaborative efforts (community engagement, staking) and creates roles for different types of players: some thrive in competition, while others focus on community efforts. Engagement is tricky. While assets shouldn't be plentiful, the platform shouldn't design a game where few players can earn rewards. Critics of P2E maintain that the ability to gain valuable items undermines the essence of gaming as an escape from reality. However, people value their time, and an "escape" means wasting it. Earning makes gaming productive as well as entertaining. Building on achievements and tailoring a more effective gaming strategy provides fulfillment. The most engaging games can help players strategize better and even apply successful approaches crafted through patience and persistence to real-life challenges. Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
