The future of monetization with web 3.0 may be questionable, but the majority of web3. 0’s focus is on decentralization. User is at the core; and will be the driving force, be it content, ads, or monetization. Adaption is the need of the hour for businesses.
As of April 2021, the global gaming value exceeded $300 Billion. While a substantial chunk of it is due to the rapid adoption in the recent pandemic and the availability of a plethora of mobile games, gaming is no longer child’s play. A sustainable, long-term monetization strategy can’t just be an afterthought but an essential building block for gaming, media, and entertainment businesses.
It’s 2022, and we are entering a new dimension with bleeding-edge innovations across industry verticals. The line between gaming, the media, and entertainment is getting thinner by the day. Seamlessly integrated experiences may have sounded fancy a couple of years back, but now it’s a bare essential.
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We’re about to enter the next generation of seamless connected-tech experiences, thanks to Metaverse. It’s time for content-based enterprises, from small indie studios to large AAA studios and OTT platforms, to reconsider their monetization strategy.
Changpeng Zhao (CZ), founder and CEO of Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, has revealed that his company’s $500 million investment in Twitter was fueled by free speech, monetization potential, and a Web 3.0 future.
While CZ expects significant changes to be undertaken, the investment was made because Binance aims to bring Twitter into Web 3.0. This will include adding cryptocurrency-based payments onto the platform.
Binance plans to create a dedicated team to work on this project with Twitter. CZ adds that the price fluctuations don’t bother his company as they are long-term investors who see things “from a 10, 20, 50, 100-year basis.”
The Current State of Monetization
Monetization in games, media, and entertainment has evolved over the decades. Games were sold as finished products in cartridges and then on physical discs. They used to be one-and-done products for which the customer got the most for their spend.
With the shift towards digital game stores like Steam, Epic, GOG, and others, the monetization landscape saw a transformational shift.
For once, studios and publishers saved a lot of money since they didn’t have to print, package, and transport physical game copies. They could also rely on fixing game bugs and patching them via Over-The-Air updates post-release, and then there’s Downloadable Content. All these had budget constraints and limited the possibilities for smaller players.
However, the paradigm shift in monetization came with mobile games. They brought in a shock and awe effect by leveraging the freemium models and using in-app purchases, in-game ads, and paid games to bypass the ads and paywalls compared to free games.
In media and entertainment, the advent of streaming platforms saw a similar dynamic, and the typical commercials saw a shift. Traditional media houses were left behind with a significant gap as OTTs ruled the roost.
But now, we are about to witness another shift that will affect the current monetization strategies of the gaming, media, and entertainment industries.