Op-ed: Zero-knowledge scaling will take decentralized gaming to the next level

Gaming is one of the fastest-growing subsectors of the web3 industry and its most resilient verticals, with funding remaining buoyant despite the unremitting bear market. Over 60% of the $7.1 billion raised by web3 startups in 2022 was funneled into web3 gaming. And 2023 looks to be the year this capital comes good, bringing with it a Cambrian explosion of high-quality games and another level of adoption.

But for web3 games to truly gain critical mass and unlock their full potential, they must overcome one of their biggest technical challenges yet — scaling.

Fortunately, the notion that web3 games can’t scale for mass adoption is rapidly changing thanks to the development of Zero-Knowledge (ZK) technology. Beyond scaling, this revolutionary tech’s introduction provides numerous gaming-changing transformations, including enhanced security, privacy protection, improved game mechanics, trustless gameplay, and new revenue streams.

True Ownership Hits The Wall of Scalability

Today, robust in-game economies are an increasingly important part of popular AAA titles like League of Legends, Fortnite, Call of Duty, Overwatch, World of Warcraft, and countless more. As proven repeatedly, there is a steady demand for in-game customization, exemplified by the skins market becoming a $50 billion industry in 2022.

Unable to sate the appetite for such items, game developers offer many in-game assets, ranging from character and weapon skins to small virtual accessories and avatar frames. Consequently, many players own tens, hundreds, or even thousands of in-game items, typically across several titles — all of which they can never truly own, sell, or trade.

Traditional web2 gaming assets have always been a one-way street, where funds flow from gamers to developers and publishers. This is one of the biggest web2 anachronisms that web3 aims to disrupt — by opening in-game economies up and allowing players to become full-fledged participants of these markets, enabling them to take those custom digital assets between different games, turning gaming into an interoperable, immersive ecosystem.

For this to happen, however, web3 gaming must be prepared to sustain the same scale at which web2 titles currently operate, and that’

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Author: Michael Powell

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