Video gaming has a very interesting and rich history. While a lot of you might only be familiar with gaming in the era of the smartphone, video games got their start in the 1950s and 60s in research labs. They would later see the homes of consumers as the Odyssey (first video game home console) and Atari’s Pong (first arcade game).

Fast forward many decades and consoles later. As technology evolves and trends emerge, companies need to keep up. In 2015, an app developer called Ijji launched Gameflip, a mobile marketplace for gamers, and this week it evolved too, re-launching as a Web3 marketplace for digital gaming items. Gameflip has generated over $120 million in sales since launching, fostering a community of 6 million gamers. Its premise remains the same, except that everything now happens on the Blockchain.

The shift to digital gaming (purchasing games online through your console) has made ownership rather blurry, with items being “locked” within each game you’re playing. That’s what Web3 gaming startups want to solve – allowing gamers to have more ownership and freedom over what they’re trading and reselling. “Gameflip enables gamers to buy and sell anything that they can trade including digital gaming items, digital codes for games & gift cards, and digital gaming collectibles and assets (NFTs) through simple and safe transactions with built-in compliance and consumer protection,” one of the makers shares.

While Gameflip focuses on the buying and selling of gaming collectibles, other startups are focusing on play-to-earn. In this model, players buy NFTs and earn in-game items in the form of tokens or, you guessed it, NFTs. Axie Infinity is one of the most popular but it's been under some pressure as DAUs and token price started dropping.

If you’d like to dive deeper into the play-to-earn monetization conundrum, Peter Yang wrote a great analysis titled “Is play to earn gaming a Ponzi scheme?”

What’s your case? 🐂or 🐻?

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